THE 



USE AND ABUSE 



OP 



TOBACCO. 



BY 

JOHNLIZARS. 

LATE PROFESSOR OF SURGERY TO THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, AND LATELY 
SENIOR OPERATING SURGEON TO THE ROYAL INFIRMARY OF EDINBURGH. 



FROM THE 
EIGHTH EDINBURGH EDITION, 



PHILADELPHIA: 

LINDSAY & BLAKISTON. 

1859. 



TOBACCO. 

Snuffing, Smoking, and Chewing, are bad habits, and we 
advise ant gentleman who is not hopelessly abandoned 
TO either, to give it up. — Medical Circular. 



NOTICE 

TO 

THE EIGHTH EDITION, 



In this Eighth Edition I have made some 
alterations, chiefly as regards arrangement ; but 
I find ; that less or more of a desultory character 
must necessarily attach itself to a brochure, in- 
tended merely as a vehicle of Practical Observa- 
tions. The reader will see that I have found 
myself called upon to make some allusion to the 
recent attempts at that fatal operation — excision 
of the tongue. 

The object of the Author will be attained, if 
his Observations have any appreciable tendency 
in arresting the progress of excessive Smoking, 
by drawing the attention of the Public to so im- 
portant a subject. It is difficult to estimate, 
either the pernicious consequences produced by 
habitual Smoking, or the number of its victims 
among all classes, old and young. The enormous 
consumption of Tobacco can be ascertained from 

• 0*) 



X NOTICE TO THE EIGHTH EDITION 

yearly returns made by the Government Custom- 
House ; but its physical, moral, and mental dete- 
riorations, admit of no such tangible analysis. 
These, although certain, are slow and impercep- 
tible in their development, and it is therefore 
impossible to ascertain the extent of the injury 
which the poisonous weed inflicts upon the public 
health, or the alteration it must necessarily effect 
upon the character of its inhabitants. ' The con- 
sumption of Tobacco is stated to be, in 1853, 
29,737,561 pounds, thus showing an allowance of 
considerably more than a pound, on an average, 
to every man, woman, and child, in the United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The 
prevalence of Smoking has been of late greatly 
on the increase, and the use of the narcotic com- 
mences with the young from mere childhood. 
Such a habit cannot be more lamented than 
reprobated. The injury done to the constitution 
of the young may not immediately appear, but 
cannot fail ultimately to become a great national 
calamity. 

John Lizaes. 

Edinburgh, 
South Charlotte Street, 1859. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TOBACCO. 

The Introduction of Tobacco into Europe — The question of its inten- 
tion for the Use of Man discussed — The Botany and Chemistry 
of Tobacco considered— Physiological Effect— M. Fieve, 13-22 

CHAPTER II. 

PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE USE AND ABUSE OP TOBACCO.- 

Contagion from Cigar-smoking — Syphilis propagated by smoking 
tobacco — Condition of Paris — 'Effect on a Fever Patient — Local 
Effects on the Mouth — Ulceration of the Lips, Tongue, Gums, 
Mucous membrane of the Mouth, Tonsils, Velum Palati, Pha- 
rynx — Constitutional Effects enumerated — Dyspepsia from use 
of Tobacco — Diarrhoea — Effects in Cholera— Disease of Liver — 
Congestion of Brain — Apoplexy — Palsy — Mania — Loss of 
Memory — Amaurosis — Deafness — Nervousness — Emasculation 
— Cowardice — General Effects — Quotations from various Authors, 
and narrations of peculiar cases of poisoning by tobacco, 23-52 

CHAPTER III. 

COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 

Opinions of Dr. Prout, Boussiron, Dr. Pereira, Orfila, Sir Benjamin 
Brodie, Dr. Cleland, Dr. Johnston, King James I., Rev. Dr. 
Adam Clarke, Mr. Solly, Dr. Wm. Henderson, Mr. Fenn, Dr. 
Tod, Mr. Anton, Mr. O'Flaherty, Dr. M'Cosh, Camden, Mr. 
Erichsen, Darwin, &c. — Cases reported in the Lancet, the Half- 
Yearly Abstract of Medical Sciences, Dictionnaire des Sciences 
Medicales, in the Account of Hospitals for the Insane in the 
United States, and in the Report of the Penna. Hospital for the 
Insane — Communications from numerous Scientific men in illus- 
tration of the evil effects of Tobacco 53-138 

(xi) 



THE 

USE AND ABUSE 

OF 

TOBACCO. 



CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TOBACCO. 

1. It is generally agreed that the use of tobacco in 
Europe, as a means of inebriation, originated in the 
introduction of the leaves of the plant into Spain from 
America. There is every reason to suppose that the 
plant previously existed in Asia, if not from the earliest 
times, though we have no very reliable authority for its 
having been used, at least to any great extent, for any 
of the purposes to which we have devoted it. I am 
aware that various old authors report, that the ancients 
of the extreme East were acquainted with the burning 
of vegetable substances as a means of inhaling narcotic 
fumes ) and, indeed, when we consider their love of in. 
censes, both as a luxury and an element of their reli- 
gious cult, we need not be surprised at this; but we 
have no evidence that the smoking of tobacco was known 
in the Old World before the introduction of the plant 
from the New. It was in 1492 that Columbus first be- 
13 (13) 



14 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

held, at Cuba, the custom of smoking cigars ; but it was 
not until some years afterwards that a Spanish monk 
recognized the plant in a province of St. Domingo, called 
Tabaca — a much more likely foundation for the name 
of the herb than that adopted by some, who assert that 
it originated in tabac, a tube used by the natives for 
smoking. That there was no particular aptitude in the 
European taste for the use of this herb, seems to me 
evident from the very slow progress which ensued even 
of the knowledge of its qualities. So late as 1560, when 
Jean Nicot, the French ambassador at the court of 
Portugal, reported of it to his sovereign, scarcely any 
thing was known of the foreign vegetable, and in place 
of the men who accompanied Columbus having taken to 
any imitation of the Cuban natives when they returned 
to Europe, it would rather seem that the adoption of 
the pipe is attributable to an Englishman, Raphelengi, 
who, having accustomed himself to it in Virginia, intro- 
duced the practice into England. Sir Walter Raleigh 
does not seem to have used the pipe until after the 
return of Sir Francis Drake in 1586, so that nearly a 
hundred years expired before even the roots of the habit 
were fixed in the English people. Nor, probably, would 
the practice after this have spread so rapidly as it did, 
if it had not been for the persecution to which it was 
almost immediately exposed. If it is true, as has been 
said, that a few opposing volumes will fix the roots of a 
heresy, we need scarcely wonder at the triumph of 
tobacco, against the use of which more than a hundred 
fulminating volumes issued from the press within a few 
years. 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 15 

2. These observations suggest a reference to the ques- 
tion, how far tobacco was intended for the use of man ? 
The practice of the Cuban savages is seized by one party 
as a proof of a final cause, insomuch as savages are sup- 
posed to follow the first dictates of nature ) and then 
comes the other party, who point to the tardy adoption 
of nature's gift by a civilized people as a clear proof 
that the weed was not intended for the uses to which it 
is applied. I believe that it is utterly vain to discuss 
questions of this kind. We have no elements for a 
proper judgment. Perhaps, for aught we know, the 
American savages were some thousands of years in 
coming to the habit — at least we have no reason to 
suppose that it could be a very primitive adoption. 
Whether, indeed, man's custom, in most cases, is a proof 
of itself of nature's intention, must always be a puzzle ; 
but as we know that many very bad things are greatly 
more natural to human beings than we would wish them 
to be, we have just as good a right to say for those to 
whom good tendencies are delightful from the begin- 
ning, that nature intended they should do their best 
to eradicate what is hurtful, and reclaim their fellow- 
creatures from the indulgences of vice. The true prac- 
tical question must in short always be, what is bene- 
ficial and what is hurtful, according to the results of our 
experience. 

3. The botany of our subject presents us with seven 
or eight different species of the plant, all affecting, more 
or less, the warm latitudes. Virginia seems, of all 
regions, the best suited to its culture, and yields in great 
quantity the common or Virginian tobacco (Nicotiana 



16 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

tabacum). A more hardy kind (iV. rustica^ may be 
cultivated in such latitudes as that of Scotland. This is 
the species which has been found in Europe, Asia, and 
Africa; and were it not for the restriction imposed by 
statute, we would produce it on rich soils in greater 
quantities than would be convenient for our treasury, or 
beneficial to our people. I need hardly say here, that 
the question of intention, on the part of nature, is not 
much helped by the habitat of the production used; 
otherwise we might expect to find the northern races 
less addicted to the use of this tropical weed than those 
of the warmer regions. We know that probably the 
contrary is the truth ; but all our efforts to draw any 
conclusion for or against the adaptation of a race to a 
production of a climate, are rendered futile by the 
teachings, not more of our religion, than of naturalists, 
who iosist for a central point of origin for all races, 
and a constitution suited to all climates. The safest 
position to hold, is that for which I insist, that a bad 
habit may be formed in any latitude, and supported by 
any number of arguments, where the wish still holds its 
mysterious power over the conclusions of what we call 
reason. 

4. As regards the composition of tobacco, we have 
endless experiments in that nearly new science, Organic 
Chemistry, which seems to try the patience of industry 
itself. There are some nine or ten different substances 
which go to the formation of a tobacco leaf, and these 
seem to change in their proportions according to the 
condition of the plant. Setting aside starch, various 
acids and salts, we come to what may be termed the 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 17 

essential element or principle called Nicotina, with the 
formula C 20 H ,4 N 2 . These proportions of carbon, hydro- 
gen, and azote, really tell to the analyst nothing from 
which he could predicate any thing certain as to the 
character of the compound. In this respect, all the 
formulae of organic substances are nearly under the 
same mystery; a small difference in the proportions 
producing the greatest difference in the combined re- 
sults. But we can be under no mistake as to the char- 
acter of the element which is called Nicotina — a color- 
less liquid alkaloid, with an acrid, burning taste. It is 
one of the most intense of all poisons, approaching in its 
activity the strongest preparation of prussic acid. 

5. The other important element procured from the 
analysis of tobacco, is an oil called nicotianin, supposed 
to be "the juice of cursed hebanon" referred to in 
Hamlet; this is the poet's formula; the chemist's is 
C n H n 2 ; but if the latter did not know from actual 
experience the deadly power of the substance, he would 
have a small chance of arriving at it by any analogy 
between formulae. As this oily substance is also a very 
intense poison, differing essentially from the alkaloid, 
and indeed it is supposed capable of acting on different 
vital organs, we have thus in tobacco two poisons — 
rather a remarkable fact in organic chemistry, where we 
find, generally, only one very active principle at the 
base of any particular production in the vegetable king- 
dom. It is indeed asserted by Landerer, that there is 
none of this deadly oil in the fresh leaves of tobacco; 
and Mr. Pereira remarks, that the substance must be 
developed in the drying of the leaves under the influ- 

B 



18 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

ence of air and water. The discovery, if true, may free 
the weed from the charge of possessing a double poison ; 
but the consequence is all the same to the foreign con- 
sumer, who never sees the leaf in its green state. 

6. It has been said that the smoke of tobacco, as 
analysed by Zeise and others, contains nothing of the 
deadly alkaloid, and tobacco smokers have pleaded for 
less detrimental effects from the pipe or cigar than from 
the quid; but I fear their conclusion is not very tenable, 
for the detrimental oil, as we in fact see from the pipe 
itself, is largely increased by the continued roasting and 
burning. We know, too, that the old pipe is a favorite 
with the epicures ; the more oil by which it is blackened 
the better becomes the instrument, till it attains perfec- 
tion as a mass of clay soaked with poison, and dried, 
and soaked and dried a hundred times, so that the en- 
tire matter is imbued with the absorption. See Dr. 
Waller Lewis's recommendation to the gentlemen of 
the London Post-Office, at page 137. The chewer takes 
less of the oil, but more of the alkaloid; the smoker 
less of the alkaloid, but more of the oil; the compari- 
son is simply a balance of evils, which is odious to either 
set of debauchees, and some get quit of the invidious 
comparison by taking the drug in both forms — a refuge 
from scientific doubt compensating for the greater amount 
of destruction to health and comfort. But if we are to 
believe Dr. Morries, the nicotianin is not destitute of a 
portion of the alkaloid; and as we know that the in- 
haled smoke is largely infected with the oil of an old 
pipe, the smoker has less to say for his habit than the 
chewer will concede; and I fairly admit, that it does 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 19 

not appear to me to be at all clear, that the former has 
any advantage over the latter in other respects; for 
while the smoker's account must be debited with the 
topical diseases, chiefly carcinomatous, from which the 
chewer is to a great extent free, he consumes a far 
greater portion of the weed than his competing debau- 
chee — a surplus so great, in the confirmed cigar smoker, 
that we are often called upon for a surprise at the num- 
ber of these small rolls which constitute his daily supply. 
7. Turning to the main part of our subject, the phy- 
siological effects, we find that, in the carnivora, tobacco 
shows its power in a very striking manner, causing vo- 
miting, purging, universal trembling, staggering, con- 
vulsions, and stupor. Physiologists are not at one in 
regard to the peculiar mode of action ; the nerves are 
probably the principal medium; but the many instances 
we have on record, of death produced by an application 
of small quantities to wounds, would indicate that the 
process is more complex. There is an ingenious expe- 
riment reported, where the effect of tobacco was noticed 
in an animal whose head was cut off, and artificial respi- 
ration kept up. The tobacco did not, as in the ordinary- 
case, paralyse the heart ; and the conclusion is accord- 
ingly drawn, that it is through the medium of the brain 
that the death action is exercised on that organ. But 
the whole of this question is rendered dubious or diffi- 
cult by other facts. For instance, there is a difference 
of action between the alkaloid and the oil ; the latter 
of which is said not to possess the power of paralyzing 
the heart. Applied to the tongue of a cat, one drop of 
the oil caused convulsions, and in *wo minutes death, 



20 tobacco: its use and abuse 

without for some time affecting much the action of the 
heart ; so that, in this respect, it operates very much in 
the manner of prussic acid. 

8. On man, the physiological effects have been very 
minutely observed. I cannot do better than give the 
"words of Mr. Pereira : " In small doses, tobacco causes 
a sensation of heat in the throat, and sometimes a feel- 
ing of warmth at the stomach. These effects are, how- 
ever, less obvious when the remedy is taken in a liquid 
form, and largely diluted. By repetition, it usually ope- 
rates as a diuretic, and less frequently as a laxative. 
Accompanying these effects are often nausea, and a pe- 
culiar feeling, usually described as giddiness, scarcely 
according with the ordinary acceptation of this form. 
As dropsical swellings sometimes disappear under the 
operation of these doses, it has been inferred that the 
remedy promotes the operation of the absorbents. In 
larger doses it promotes nausea, vomiting, and purging : 
though it seldom gives rise to abdominal pain, it pro 
duces a most distressing sensation of sinking at the pit 
of the stomach. It occasionally acts as an anodyne, or 
more rarely promotes sleep. But its most remarkable 
effects are languor, feebleness, relaxation of muscles, 
trembling of the limbs, great anxiety, and tendency to 
faint. Vision is frequently enfeebled, the ideas con- 
fused, the pulse small and weak, the respiration some- 
what laborious, the surface cold and clammy, or bathed 
in a cold sweat, and, in extreme cases, convulsive move- 
ments are observed. In excessive doses, the effects are 
of the same kind, but more violent in degree. The 
more prominent symptoms are nausea, vomiting, and in 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 21 

some cases purging, extreme weakness, and relaxation 
of the muscles, depression of the vascular system (mani- 
fested by feeble pulse, pale face, cold sweats, and ten- 
dency to faint), convulsive movements, followed by 
paralysis, and a kind of torpor terminating in death." 

9. As an accompaniment to these physiological effects, 
I may here give an extract from the newly published 
pamphlet by Monsieur Fievee, showing the mental or 
moral effects of this deleterious agent. 

" We do not insist principally on the material disas- 
ters resulting from tobacco, knowing very well that any 
reasoning on this subject will not produce conviction. 
A danger of far greater interest to those concerned in 
the preservation of the individual, is the enfeeblement 
of the human mind, the loss of the powers of intelli- 
gence and of moral energy; in a word, of the vigor of 
the intellect, one of the elements of which is memory. 
We are much deceived, if the statistics of actual men- 
tal vigor would not prove the low level of the intellect 
throughout Europe since the introduction of tobacco. 
The Spaniards have first experienced the penalty of its 
abuse, the example of which they have so industriously 
propagated, and the elements of which originated in 
their conquests and their ancient energy. The rich 
Havanna enjoys the monopoly of the poison which 
procures so much gold in return for so many victims ; 
but the Spaniards have paid for it also by the loss of 
their political importance, of their rich appanage of art 
and literature, of their chivalry, which made them one 
of the first people of the world. Admitting that other 
causes operated, tobacco has been one of the most influ- 



22 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

ential. Spain is now a vast tobacco shop, and its only 
consolation is, that other nations are fast approaching 
to its level. Tobacco, as the great flatterer of sensuality, 
is one of the most energetic promoters of individualism 
— that is, of a weakening of social ties. Its appearance 
coincides fatally with reform and the spirit of inquiry. 
Man inaugurates the introduction of logic in matters in- 
accessible, at the same time that, as Montaigne says, he 
gives way to a habit destructive of the faculty of ratioci- 
nation — a contradiction which shows us that necessity 
of defect by which he is tormented." 

My own experience confirms much of this, but a more 
particular physiological account will be found in my 
Practical Observations. The reader will find a very in- 
teresting paper by Dr. Alfred Swaine Taylor, in Guy's 
Hospital Reports, Vol. IV., p. 345. 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 23 



CHAPTEE II. 

PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE USE AND ABUSE 
OF TOBACCO. 

10. Although for a considerable time past I had 
collected many important facts regarding the Use and 
Abuse of Tobacco, the publication of these Practical 
Observations has nevertheless been in some measure 
accelerated by the perusal of a paper by Professor Sig- 
mund of Vienna, "Upon Syphilitic Contagion from 
Cigar Smoking/' which appeared in the Medical Times 
and Gazette, under a Selections from Foreign Journals." 
From the brief statement there given, it is difficult to 
decide what opinion Dr. Sigmund entertains on the 
subject — whether he considers that the tobacco generates 
the syphilitic ulceration of the lips, tonsils, and gums ; 
or that the cigar is impregnated with the venereal virus, 
through the medium of the manufacturer of it. 

11. Many cases of syphilitic virus, introduced into the 
healthy constitution, by smoking a cigar or pipe used by 
a diseased person, have come under my notice. The 
practice is by no means uncommon, in some ranks of 
life, for two individuals to smoke the same pipe or cigar 
alternately, the one taking a puffer draw, after the 
other, and in this way the morbia poison produces a 
similar effect to what is exemplified in the communica- 



24 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

tion of yaws or sibbens, by drinking out of an infected 
cup or vessel. Ihave often been consulted by gentlemen 
having marked syphilitic ulcerated throat, which they 
could not account for, having had no primary symptoms 
on the genitals. On interrogating them, they have ad- 
mitted lighting a pipe used by another, or having 
accepted a puff of a friend's cigar. Some patients have 
presented themselves with syphilitic ulceration on the 
lower or upper lip, or the commissure between them 
having a thickened base. Some have had syphilitic 
ulcers of the mucous membrane of the cheeks, tongue, 
and tonsils. A few have had, with the preceding ulcers, 
secondary eruption' of the skin and loose hair: while 
others have been affected with secondary condylomata. 
I once witnessed an operation performed upon a woman 
with syphilitic ulcer of the lower lip, combined with a 
hardened base, produced by smoking a pipe of a syphilitic 
patient. Excision of the diseased mass was resorted to 
by the operator, a man of great experience and dexterity, 
mistaking the affection for carcinoma. In a few weeks 
after the operation, the secondary syphilitic eruption 
manifested itself, and was cured by the hydriodate of 
potass. It is scarcely possible to heal a syphilitic sore, 
or to unite a fractured bone, in a devoted smoker — his 
constitution seems to be in the same vitiated state as in 
one affected with scurvy. 

12. A writer on tobacco describes Paris, in its relation 
to smoking, thus : " In Paris," says he, " it is impossible 
to walk in the streets without being constantly exposed 
to receive into tire mouth, and consequently to inhale, 
the fumes of tobacco from so many mouths, clean and 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 25 

unclean, passing before and behind, to the great annoy- 
ance, and indeed injury to the health of every one, and 
most disgusting to those cognizant of its poisonous 
effects. In the arcades and passages it is particularly 
offensive and obnoxious, the atmosphere of those close 
places being always contaminated by the pestilential ex- 
halations. I may add, this must be still more so the 
case in the smoking-rooms of our clubs. And I may 
here put a query — May not the fumes of tobacco, ex- 
haled from a smoker laboring under syphilitic sore 
throat and mouth, be inhaled by a clean, healthy indi- 
vidual, with an abraded or ulcerated lip, and the former 
contaminate the latter ? I have seen syphilitic ulcera- 
tion of the lip, the chin, the mouth, and the throat, indi- 
vidually and collectively, where no trace whatever could 
be brought to bear on how the ulcers were caused. How 
often does syphilitic onychia occur without our being 
able to discover any contamination ?" 

13. A remarkable change occurs to the excessive 
smoker, when he labors under influenza or fever, as he 
then not only loses all relish for the cigar or pipe, but 
even actually loathes them. Does not this important 
fact satisfactorily show, that the furor tabaci depends on 
the morbid condition produced on the salivary secretion 
and organ of taste by the deleterious drug, and at the 
same time illustrate the pathological law, that two morbid 
states seldom or ever co-exist in the same individual ? 
The sudden removal of all desire to smoke, affords the 
best refutation to the delusive representations which the 
unhappy tobacco victim urges for continuing the inju- 
rious habit, on the ground, that its abandonment would 



2o tobacco: it& use and abuse. 

be prejudicial to his health, and proves, if he had a will 
to relinquish the pipe or cigar, he would find a way. 
The best argument to use in dealing with the obstinate 
prejudices of such people, is to tell them, that an acci- 
dental attack of a new disease can safely and at once 
occasion the total withdrawal of tobacco without pro- 
ducing any bad consequences. It is scarcely possible to 
cure either syphilis or gonorrhoea, if the patient continue 
to indulge in smoking tobacco. 

14. When tobacco is too much indulged in, it pro- 
duces, both locally and constitutionally, the most dire 
effects. Locally, smoking causes ulceration of the lips, 
tongue,* gums, mucous membrane of the mouth or 
cheeks, tonsils, velum, and even pharynx. Many, from 
smoking, produce carcinomatous ulceration of the lower 
or upper lip, or its commissure, requiring excision of the 
diseased structure. One individual, a captain of the 
Indian navy, fell a victim under my care (from smoking 
Cherouts). When I first saw him, he had ulceration 
of the mucous membrane of his left cheek, extending 
backwards to the tonsil and pharynx of the same side, 
having all the characteristic appearances of carcinoma. 
The disease resisted every variety of treatment. Inter- 
nally — alteratives and mild diet; externally — fomenta- 
tions, poultices, a solution of honey and water, and nitric 
acid. From this case, and other instances, it would ap- 
pear that the cigar induces carcinoma just as readily as 
the cutty-pipe. It would seem that the pungent oil of 
the tobacco, combmed with the heat, constitutes the ex- 

* See Chapter III., p. 132. 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 27 

citing cause. The ulceration of the lips, especially the 
lower, so closely resembles syphilis, that it requires great 
care and examination to distinguish it. If there be no 
carcinomatous condition of the ulcerated surface of the 
lips, mouth, or throat, rinsing the mouth with a solution 
of honey (a teaspoonful in a tumbler of warm water) 
three or four times a day, prescribing an alterative pow- 
der of the bicarbonate of soda 9ji, rhubarb g r v a , columba 
g r v a , twice a day ; a blue pill once a week ; light diet, as 
the farinaceous, with occasionally fowl or veal ; confine- 
ment to a large, well-ventilated room; and the rigid 
abstinence of the pernicious weed, will generally soon 
effect a cure. In some, it may be necessary to touch 
the ulcerated surface with nitric acid every fourth or 
fifth day. 

15. Devoted smokers as pertinaciously insist, that they 
cannot give up such a luxury, as the drunkard affirms 
that he cannot relinquish his stimulus. But I have 
known instances in both classes of individuals manfully 
giving them up. There is an officer in Her Majesty's 
service who had upwards of ten severe attacks of deli- 
rium tremens, and is now a teetotaller ; and he has been 
so for upwards of fifteen years. 

16. The following case, from the Half -Yearly Ab- 
stract of the Medical Sciences, for January onwards to 
July, 1854, page 70, satisfactorily shows that tobacco 
can be given up. It is likewise a terrible illustration 
of its baneful effects on the constitution. Drs. Rankin 
and Radcliffe, the editors, head it, "A case of Angina 
Pectoris resulting from the Use of Tobacco" and thus 
introduce it : " The following case possesses a very high 



28 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

degree of interest." The history of the case is thus 
related by Dr. Corson, of New York : 

"A highly intelligent man, aged sixty-five, stout, 
ruddy, early married, temperate, managing a large busi- 
ness, after premising that he commenced chewing to- 
bacco at seventeen, swallowing the juice, as is sometimes 
customary, to prevent injuring his lungs from constant 
spitting, and that years after he suffered from a gnaw- 
ing, capricious appetite, nausea, vomiting of meals, ema- 
ciation, nervousness, and palpitation of the heart, dic- 
tated to Dr. Corson, recently, the following story : 

" ' Seven years thus miserably passed, when, one day 
after dinner, I was suddenly seized with intense pain in 
the chest, gasping for breath, and a sensation as if a 
crowbar were pressed tightly from the right breast to the 
left, till it came and twisted in a knot round the heart, 
which now stopped deathly still for a minute, and then 
leaped like a dozen frogs. After two hours of death- 
like suffering, the attack ceased ; and I found that ever 
after my heart missed every fourth beat. My physician 
said that I had organic disease of the heart, must die 
suddenly, and need only take a little brandy for the 
painful paroxysms ; and I soon found it the only thing 
that gave them any relief. For the next twenty-seven 
years I continued to suffer milder attacks like the above, 
lasting from one to several minutes, sometimes as often 
as two or three times a day or night ; and to be sickly 
looking, thin, and pale as a ghost. Simply from revolt- 
ing at the idea <rf being a slave to one vile habit alone] 
and without dreaming of the suffering it had cost me, 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 29 

after thirty-three years' use, I one day threw away tobacco 
forever. 

tt t Words cannot describe my suffering and desire for 
a time. I was reminded of the Indian, who, next to all 
the rum in the world, wanted all the tobacco. But my 
firm will conquered. In a month my paroxysms nearly 
ceased, and soon after left entirely. I was directly a 
new man, and grew stout and hale as you see. With 
the exception of a little asthmatic breathing, in close 
rooms and the like, for nearly twenty years since I have 
enjoyed excellent health/ " 

On examination, Dr. Corson found the heart seemingly 
healthy in size and structure, only irregular, intermitting 
still at every fourth pulsation. 

17. After such well-marked examples of manly firm- 
ness, no one need pretend to affirm that the luxury of 
smoking, snuffing, plugging, or chewing, or quidding, 
cannot be given up; or that the stimulus of wine, or 
spirits, or malt liquors, cannot be relinquished. I may 
here remark, that chewing or quidding does not seem 
to irritate the mucous membrane of the mouth to the 
extent that smoking does \ it never causes ulceration. 

18. Some of the constitutional effects of tobacco have 
been already detailed under Dr. Corson's case. But I 
shall commence their enumeration by generally stating, 
that they are numerous and varied, consisting of giddi- 
ness, sickness, vomiting, dyspepsia, vitiated taste of the 
mouth, loose bowels, diseased liver, congestion of the 
brain, apoplexy, palsy, mania, loss of naemory, amauro- 
sis, deafness, nervousness, emasculation, and cowardice. 

19. When a youth commences his apprenticeship to 

14 



30 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

smoking tobacco, lie suffers often the most inconceivably 
miserable sickness and vomiting — almost as bad as sea- 
sickness. It generally produces these effects so rapidly, 
that their production must entirely depend upon nervous 
influence, as giddiness is almost immediately induced. 
The antidote or cure for this miserable condition is 
drinking strong coffee, or brandy and water, and retiring 
to bed or sofa. If he perseveres, he has just to suffer 
onwards, until his nervous system becomes habituated to 
the noxious weed, and too often to the bottle at the same 
time. It is truly melancholy to witness the great num- 
ber of the young who smoke now-a-days; and it is pain- 
ful to contemplate how many promising youths must be 
stunted in their growth, and enfeebled in their minds, 
before they arrive at manhood. 

20. "Let the young adept/' says Boussiron, in his 
interesting Treatise on Tobacco, "whom you wish to 
form by your lessons, smoke the leaves of tobacco, thorn- 
apple, or deadly night-shade, and you may be certain to 
see take place the effects nearly identical in violence — 
giddiness, intoxication, disturbed vision, nausea, vomit- 
ing, and frequently diarrhoea." 

21. Dyspepsia from the use of tobacco is accompanied 
with the same symptoms as when the disease is produced 
by drinking or gluttony, and want of exercise in the 
open air. The only cure is, by " throwing away tobacco 
for ever " — and this will be accelerated by a blue pill 
once a week, the alterative powder morning and evening, 
prescribed under ulceration of the mouth, the infusion 
of quassia, or quassia and gentian combined, mild nutri- 
tious diet, as coffee or tea, with lightly toasted bread, 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 31 

beef-tea with or without rice, or toast for three or four 
days, a glass or two of sherry wine, and exercise in the 
open air, either on foot or horseback, or carriage, or still 
better, all combined. Exercise should be taken before 
meals, and the patient lounge on a sofa for two or three 
hours after meals. Change of air, fully fifty or one 
hundred miles distant, is of great benefit. After three 
or four days, beef-steak or mutton-chop should supersede 
the beef-tea, and then a few vegetables, well boiled, may 
be taken. A few drops of the balsam of copaiba, say 
eight or ten drops combined, with ten of aquae potassas, 
and a teaspoonful of sweet nitre, in half a cup of cold 
water sweetened, and taken at bed-time, has a most 
soothing effect. Frank's Specific is the most elegant 
and agreeable preparation of copaiba, even preferable to 
the capsules. There is an imitation of Frank's Specific 
prepared by the chemists of London. 

22. The vitiated taste of the mouth is generally a 
symptom of dyspepsia, and is to be cured in the same 
way. 

23. The looseness of the bowels is to be treated by 
u throwing away tobacco for ever ;" by prescribing an 
astringent mixture of the electuary of catechu, prepared 
chalk, syrup of ginger and laudanum; by farinaceous 
and milk diet for eight days, with rest in bed for four or 
five days, then for the same time on a sofa. At the end 
of eight or ten days, beef soup with rice, or lightly toasted 
bread, puddings of rice, sago, and arrow root, for four or 
five days. Then beef-steak or mutton-chop, with rice, 
lightly toasted bread, and a glass or two of port wine, 



32 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

made into negus or mulled. Exercise in the open air 
should now be freely taken. 

24. During the prevalence of cholera, I have had re- 
peated opportunities of observing, that individuals ad- 
dicted to the use of tobacco, especially those who snuff 
it, are more disposed to attacks of that disease, and gene- 
rally in its most malignant and fatal form.* 

25. Disease of the liver seems to be caused by the 
tobacco exciting the system, and by the dyspeptic symp- 
toms produced. It is to be treated by "throwing away 
tobacco for ever ;" by prescribing half a grain of the 
protoioduret of mercury, with or without opium, accord- 
ing to the state of the bowels, made into a pill with the 
extract of gentian, morning and evening ; by an infusion 
of quassia, or quassia and gentian combined ; by blister- 
ing over the region of the liver, and dressing the tender 
surface with mercurial ointment. In some cases it is 
necessary to keep a portion of the blistered surface open 
for some time. In the commencement, rest, and farina- 
ceous and milk diet. Afterwards, exercise in the open 
air, beef-tea with rice, or lightly toasted bread, for a few 
days ; and then beef-steak or mutton-chop, and a glass 
or two of sherry. If the protoioduret threatens to affect 
the mouth, it should be given up, and the same with 
the mercurial dressing of the blistered surface. Dr. Scott 
of India's foot-bath of nitro-muriatic acid is often bene- 
ficial. When convalescent, nothing is so beneficial as 
change of air. 

26. Congestion of the brain occurs almost only in 

* See Fenn's cases, p. 66. 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 33 

those much, addicted to smoking, in whom a cigar is 
never out of the mouth ; but I have witnessed it also to 
occur in the snuffer of the plant. It is denoted by head- 
ache, want of sleep, or rather restless nights, and occa- 
sionally flushing of the countenance. The worst case I 
have had under my care was a foreigner, who travelled 
for a manufacturer of cigars — he was at the same time 
fearfully nervous. He had a red, swollen countenance, 
as if he combined the bottle with his smoking, but this 
he assured me he never did — the tobacco was enough 
for him. I inserted an issue or seton in the nape of his 
neck, purged him with calomel and aloes, put him on as 
low a diet as he would permit, confined him to the 
house, and entreated him to smoke as few cigars as pos- 
sible. In a fortnight the congestion of the brain was 
subdued, and then he was allowed gradually more and 
more nourishing diet and exercise in the open air. He 
returned to Edinburgh in two years after in good health 
but still nervous even from the moderate use of cigars. 
He said that he had tried to give them up altogether, 
but that he had found that impracticable — a difficulty 
connected, no doubt, with his avocation. 

27. Apoplexy has been taken notice of by several 
authors, supervening to the smoking of tobacco : also to 
the immoderate use of snuff, as related by Morgagni; 
likewise in the Ephemertdes des Curieux de la Nature, 
and in the Journal a" Allemagne for 1830, page 179. 
The treatment here is the same as that for congestion 
of the brain. 

28. The form of palsy produced by excessive smoking 
is generally hemiplegia, and it is almost always incura- 

c 



34 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

ble. It follows as often from too much snuffing as too 
much smoking. The treatment consists in " throwing 
away tobacco for ever/ 7 inserting setons in the lumbar 
region, tonics, cold bathing, and good diet. 

29. Mania is a fearful result of the excessive use of 
tobacco — two cases of which I have witnessed since the 
publication of this treatise. I have also to mention, 
that a gentleman called on me, and thanked me for the 
publication of my Observations on Tobacco, and related 
to me, with deep emotion, what had occurred in his own 
family from smoking tobacco. Two amiable younger 
brothers had gone deranged, and committed suicide. 
There is no hereditary predisposition to mania in the 
family. At a meeting of the Medical and Chirurgical 
Society of London, on May 2d, 1854, a paper was read, 
entitled, "Additional Remarks on the Statistics and 
Morbid Anatomy of Mental Diseases," by Dr. Webster, 
wherein he cites, among the causes, the great use of 
tobacco, which opinion he supported by reference to the 
statistics of insanity in Germany. 

30. Loss of memory takes place in an extraordinary 
degree in the smoker, much more so than in the drunk- 
ard, evidently from tobacco acting more on the brain 
than alcohol. The cure consists in "throwing away to- 
bacco for ever." 

31. Amaurosis is a very common result of smoking 
tobacco to excess; but I have never seen it produced by 
snuffing or chewing. It occurs with or without conges- 
tion of the brain. It is commonly confined to one eye. 
It is generally curable, but not always, by "throwing 
away tobacco for ever" — by inserting a seton in the 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 35 

back of the neck, another seton in the temple or tem- 
ples, according as one or both eyes are affected. In the 
course of eight or ten days, the seton in the temple is 
to be withdrawn, a common fly blister applied, and the 
blistered surface sprinkled with strychnia. The bowels 
to be freely opened with calomel and aloes. The diet 
to be light, as the farinaceous. The patient should be 
confined in a large, well-ventilated apartment, and an 
obscure light. 

32. Deafness is not so common a sequence to smoking 
tobacco as amaurosis. It is to be treated on precisely 
the same principles, with the difference of applying the 
blisters and strychnia behind the ears. 

33. Nervousness is remarkably common from indulging 
too much in smoking, snuffing, or chewing tobacco. It 
is to be treated by u throwing away tobacco forever" — 
by having recourse to the shower-bath in winter, and 
sea-bathing in summer — by nourishing diet, attention 
to the bowels, the alterative powder, as prescribed under 
ulceration of the lips, the tonics, as quassia and gentian, 
and even quinine ; exercise in the open air, and by mix- 
ing in quiet, agreeable society, as the nervous system is 
easily and readily over-excited; and, lastly, by change 
of air, and ultimately travelling about. 

34. Emasculation, as an effect of tobacco, may well 
astonish the gay Lothario, as he might, unconscious of 
the cause, have boasted, that " never in my youth did I 
apply the means of weakness and debility." I have 
been consulted by fathers of from thirty to forty years 
of age, who, having married in early life, have had two 
or three children soon after marriage onwards to thirty 



oG tobacco: its use and abuse. 

years old, but have been surprised that they had even- 
tually lost all inclination for sexual indulgence. On in- 
terrogating them, I have invariably found that they were 
all excessive smokers; and on convincing them that to- 
bacco was the cause of their temporary impotence, they 
have instantly " thrown away tobacco forever" and in a 
few months after have returned to me, saying that they 
had become fathers again. I have found unmarried men 
similarly affected with the want of the sexual vis et 
animus. 

35. I have invariably found, that patients addicted to 
tobacco smoking were in spirit cowardly, and deficient 
in manly fortitude to undergo any surgical operation, 
however trifling, proposed to relieve them from the suf- 
fering of other complaints. In such cases chloroform is 
a great boon. 

36. When we consider the effect of tobacco in tetanus, 
and in strangulated hernia in former days, we can read- 
ily comprehend its powerful narcotic effects : they are 
stronger than opium — opium differing from tobacco only 
in constipating the bowels. The use of tobacco for me- 
dical purposes has been long known, but its application 
has been carried, fundamentally, of late, to the full ex- 
tent to which the human body can be subjected — a cigar 
having been actually inserted into the anus, by an Ame- 
rican physician, as a medical reagent — thus introducing 
the poison into every vital passage. ^ 

37. The number of people who from twelve years of 
age are given to smoking, snuffing, plugging, and chew- 
ing, or quidding the noxious weed, appears quite incre- 
dible. By its so general consumption, we must become 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 37 

changed in both corporeal and mental faculties — we can- 
not fail to be enfeebled in body and mind, and become 
a deteriorated race. I once travelled with a gentleman 
from South America, who first filled his nostrils with 
snuff, which he prevented falling out, by stuffing shag 
tobacco after it, and this he termed "plugging" — then 
put in each cheek a coil of pigtail tobacco, which he 
named u quidding," in this country called " chewing : " 
lastly, he lit a Havannah cigar, which he put into his 
mouth; and thus smoked and chewed, puffing at one 
time the smoke of the cigar, and at another time squirt- 
ing the juice from his mouth, as so graphically described 
by Dickens in the boat story, on the way to the Far 
West. This gentleman was as thin as a razor, with an 
olive-colored countenance, and frightfully nervous. The 
preceding is neither a caricature, nor an exaggerated ac- 
count of the fearful extent to which the use of tobacco 
is carried — not merely in Europe, as we know, but, as 
there is every reason to fear, in every quarter of the 
globe where it either grows, or is unhappily conveyed. 

38. There can be no doubt, from what has occurred 
in the war just ended, that had the Turks never indulged 
in the vicious habit of smoking tobacco, they would not 
have required the assistance of the French, Sardinians, 
and British. They would have been as powerful as in 
the days of the Sultans Oth man, Orchan, Amurath the 
First, and Bajazet, and would have sent such a message 
through Menschikoff to the Czar Nicholas, as the Sul- 
tan Bajazet said to the Count de Nevers, of France, when 
taken prisoner after his celebrated unsuccessful cavalry 
charge (like that at Balaklava) near Nicropolis. 



ob tobacco: its use and abuse. 

89. It is allowed by British and other European offi- 
cers, that the Turkish soldier is equal, if not superior, 
to the private soldier of any other European nation.* 
But the officers are ignorant, lazy, and indolent, con- 
stantly stupefied with tobacco. The late expedition of 
Omer Pacha from Batoun to Kutais, is graphically de- 
scribed by one of the correspondents of an English 
journal : while the private soldiers were toiling away in 
dragging the artillery through forests, their officers were 
squatted, smoking their pipes or chibouques ! 

40. It is stated that Abbas the First, Shah of Persia 
in the beginning of the seventeenth century (he reigned 
from 1587 to 1629), denounced opium and tobacco; and 
that, when leading an army against the Cham of Tartary, 
he proclaimed that every soldier in whose possession to- 
bacco was found, would have his nose and lips cut off, 
and afterwards be burnt alive. He re-established the 
Persian empire by his activity and conquests. 

41. Amurath the Fourth, of Turkey, denounced the 
use of tobacco. He ended his reign in 1389. 

42. The manner of the embodiment of the Janizaries, 
and especially their training for soldiers by their founder 
Ala-ed-deen, the brother of the Sultan Orchan, is well 
worth the consideration of the Secretary-at-War, the 
Commander-in-Chief, the Horse-Guards, and, more par- 
ticularly, of the Army Reform Commissioners. 

43. "The Mahrattas, in working a battery, never 
pointed their cannon so as to mark in a particular spot, 

* Vide Le Continent, in 1854. Paris, 1854. Also, General Wil- 
liams's (the brave defender of Kars) Speech at the Army and Navy 
Club, June, 1856. 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 39 

but aimed at random all round the wall. After loading 
a gun they sat down, smoked and conversed for half-an- 
hour ; then fired, reloaded, and resumed their conversa- 
tion. Two hours at mid-day, by mutual consent, were 
set apart for meals and recreation." u The English cal- 
culated seven years as the period in which a breach 
might be effected."* 

44. It is stated that the Sikhs, now named the Pun- 
jabees, never smoke tobacco, it being contrary to their 
religion. I may ask, are there any soldiers in India 
equal to the Sikhs ? At Chillianwallah, at Moodkee, at 
Ferozshah, at Aliwur, at Mooltan, at Sobraon, no soldiers 
behaved better. 

45. Mr. Meadows, in an interesting account of the 
Chinese, states, that " the soldier who smokes tobacco is 
bambooed, and he who smokes opium is beheaded." — 

Vide British Quarterly Review, No. 51, for July, 1857, 
page 49. 

46. Rumph, in his Herbarium Amboinense, says, that 
the Chinese and natives of India used tobacco only as a 
medicine or medicament. "Neutiquam," he observes, 
" vere ad suctionem sed tantum modo ad usum medicum 
unanimo enim consensu, Indi assentiunt sese Tabaci suc- 
tionem ab Europeis dedicisse." 

47. The celebrated French surgeon, Percy, states, 
that tobacco was as regularly served out to the French 
soldiers as provisions, and thus comments on the prac- 
tice : " It had doubtless been calculated that smoking 
hurt the appetite ; and to save daily from four to six 

* Murray's British India, vol. ii. p. 127. The author here alludes 
to the siege of Darwar, occupied by Tippoc in September, 1791. 



40 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

ounces of bread per man, they furnished him with three 
farthings' worth of bad tobacco. During the conquest 
of Holland, Louvois paid more attention to furnishing 
tobacco than provisions ; and even at this day, as well as 
in former times, more care is taken to procure tobacco 
than bread to the soldier. Every soldier was obliged to 
have his pipe and his match/' 

48. Constant relates the following anecdote of the 
great Napoleon : " Napoleon," says he, " once took a 
fancy to smoke, for the purpose of trying a very fine 
oriental pipe presented to him by a Turkish or Persian 
ambassador. Preparation having been made — the fire 
having been applied to the recipient — nothing more was 
to be done than to communicate it to the tobacco, but 
that could never be effected in the way taken by his 
majesty for that purpose. He contented himself with 
opening and shutting his mouth alternately, without the 
least in the world drawing in his breath. 'How the 
devil/ cried he at last — ' that does nothing ! ' I made 
him observe, that he made the attempt badly, and showed 
him the proper mode of doing it. But the emperor 
always returned to his kind of yawning. Wearied by 
his vain attempts, he at last desired me to light the pipe. 
I obeyed, and returned it to him in order. But scarcely 
had he drawn in a mouthful, when the smoke, which he 
knew not how to expel from his mouth, turned back into 
his palate, penetrated into his throat, and came out by 
the nose and blinded him. As soon as he recovered 
breath — i Take that away from me — what abomination ! 
Oh, the swine ! — my stomach turns !' In fact, he felt 
himself so annoyed for at least an hour, that he renounced 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 41 

for ever the pleasure of a habit which he said was only 
fit to amuse sluggards." 

49. The students attending the American colleges are 
said to destroy their physical and moral powers by 
smoking tobacco, so as to unfit them to prosecute their 
studies, and afterwards to become useful members of 
society. But we have even the judges on the bench 
qiddding tobacco, as well as the members of parliament, 
so facetiously described by Dickens in his American 
Notes for general circulation, wherein he terms Wash- 
ington the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured saliva. 
Dr. Budget, in his treatise on tobacco, states, that in 
America, " it is no uncommon circumstance to hear of 
inquests on the bodies of smokers, especially youths; 
the ordinary verdict being, ' died from extreme tobacco 
smoking/ " 

50. " The pupils of the Polytechnic School in Paris 
have recently furnished some curious statistics bearing 
on the tobacco controversy. Dividing the young gen- 
tlemen of that college into two groups — the smokers 
and non-smokers — it is shown that the smokers have 
shown themselves in the various competitive examina- 
tions far inferior to the others. Not only in the exami- 
nations on entering the school are the smokers in a lower 
rank, but in the various ordeals that they have to pass 
through in a year, the average rank of the smokers had 
constantly fallen, and not inconsiderably, while the men 
who did not smoke enjoyed a cerebral atmosphere of the 
clearest kind." — From the Globe, also the Dublin Medi- 
cal Press. 

51. Excessive smoking has had no small share in the 



42 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

degeneration of Spain. A Spaniard is never without a 
cigar in his mouth. It was observed during the Penin- 
sular war, that the Spanish officers passed the whole day 
in smoking, in cutting and mincing tobacco to make 
paper cigars, and in eating and sleeping — and never 
existed men sunk in such idleness, indolence, and 
apathy. I am sorry to add, that the Portuguese were 
in the same degraded condition. Germany is said to be 
as immersed in tobacco as Spain. And I fear we are 
fast drifting into the same degraded condition. Fenelon 
says, " Youth is the flower of a nation ; it is in the flower 
that the fruit should be cultivated." Condorcet, on the 
progress of the human mind, thus concludes : " Such is 
the practice of using fermented liquors, hot drinks, 
opium,* and tobacco, that men have sought with a kind 

* The author of " Confessions of an English Opium Eater," states, 
that the number of amateur opium-eaters in London is immense. 
And in Manchester, the work people of the cotton manufactories are 
rapidly getting into the practice of opium-eating. In the Nineteenth 
Report of the Inspectors of Prisons in the Northern and Eastern 
Districts of England, it is stated that, in the district of Wisbeach, 
" opium-eating is very prevalent in this district, and the use of the 
drug is often apparent in its effects on the morals and intellects of the 
prisoners." The Rev. A. S. Thelwall, in his interesting work on 
" The Iniquities of the Opium Trade with China," gives a deplorable 
account of the destructive effect on the health of the Chinese who in- 
dulge in it. He gives a translation of a memorial to the Emperor, 
by Choo Tsun, a member of Council, &c. " In the history of For- 
mosa," says he, "we find the following passage : Opium was first 
produced in Kaoutsinne, which by some is said to be the same as 
Kalapa or Batavia. The natives of this place were, at the first, 
sprightly and active, and, being good soldiers, were always successful 
in battle. But the people called Hung-maou (red-haired,) came 
thither, and having manufactured opium, seduced some of the natives 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 43 

of frenzy, means of procuring sensations which may be 
continually renewed. There are few nations among 
whom these practices are not observed, from which is 
derived a pleasure that occupies whole days, or is re- 
peated at every interval, that prevents the weight of 
time from being felt, satisfies the necessity of having 
the faculties roused, and at last blunting the edge of 



into the habit of smoking it. From these the mania for it spread 
rapidly throughout the whole nation j so that in process of time the 
natives became feeble and enervated, submitted to foreign rule, and 
ultimately were completely subjugated. Now the English/' continues 
he, "are of the race of foreigners called Hung-maou. In introducing 
opium into this country, their purpose has been to weaken and en- 
feeble the Central Empire. If not early aroused to a sense of our 
danger, we shall find ourselves ere long on the last step towards 
ruin." " It thus appears," concludes Choo Tsun, " it is beyond the 
power of any artificial means to save a people enervated by luxury." 
In the same memorial, Choo Tsun thus observes: "While the stream 
of importation of opium is not turned aside, it is impossible to attain 
any certainty that none within the camp do ever secretly inhale the 
drug. And if the camp be once contaminated by it, the baneful in- 
fluence will work its way, and the habit will be contracted beyond 
the power of reform. When the periodical times of desire for it come 
round, how can the victims (their legs tottering, their hands trembling, 
their eyes flowing with child-like tears,) be able in any way to attend 
to their proper exercise? Or how can such men form strong and -pow- 
erful legions ? Under these circumstances, the military will become 
alike unfit to the fight, or in a retreat to defend their posts. Of this 
there is a clear proof in the instance of the campaign against the 
Yaou rebels in 1832. In the army sent to Leenchnow on that occasion, 
great numbers of the soldiers were opium - sm oker s ; so that, although 
their numerical force ivas large, there was hardly any strength to be 
found among them." If the smoking of opium produces such direful 
effects, why should not tobacco ? They are both narcotics, nay, to- 
bacco is the more potent narcotic or poison. 



44 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

tins necessity, thus prolongs the duration of the infancy 
and inactivity of the human mind. These practices, 
which have proved an obstacle to the progress of igno- 
rant and enslaved nations, produce also their effects in 
wise and more civilized countries, preventing truth from 
diffusing, through all degrees of men, a pure and equal 
light." 

52. While investigating the baneful influence of to- 
bacco, I have been led to consider the effects of brandy 
and other stimulants on th e courage of the soldier, during 
the last Russian war. It appears to me, that the Rus- 
sians lost their different battles in the Crimea chiefly 
from having served out to them too much brandy or 
raki, immediately before entering into action. This was 
especially remarked after the battle of Inkermann. That 
extraordinarily intelligent soldier, Philip O'Flaherty, in 
his Sketches of the War, thus observes, after the battle 
of Inkermann : " We took a good many prisoners who 
were half-drunk. It appears that the authorities sup- 
plied the men plentifully with liquor, in order that they 
might fight well. The Russians had a great many killed 
and wounded. The hills were strewn with theni." This 
intoxicated condition of the Russians is also described 
in several letters from the camp. Even our own troops, 
about the conclusion of the war, were becoming exces- 
sively addicted to drinking. It may be said that the 
Russians, besides their prodigal allowance of raki, were 
often led into action after long forced marches, and in 
an ill-fed condition. Nevertheless, the over-dose of raki 
would, in my estimation, detract from their powers of 
endurance, instead of prolonging them. 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 45 

53. Our prize-fighters are not allowed stimulants or 
tobacco, either during the time of their training, or on 
the day of their battle — not even during their fighting. 
The training of the prize-fighter, with some modification, 
appears admirably adapted to the rearing of soldiers, es- 
pecially young recruits. I understand boat-racers, like 
pugilists, are prohibited tobacco. See Lancet for 2d 
May, 1857. The huntsman who indulges in a glass of 
brandy (jumping powder) on the morning of the chase, 
does not ride to hounds like the sob%r rider. The Iron 
Duke, or any other true sportsman, never indulged on 
the morning of a hunt with fox-hounds. The hunter, 
or horse, gets only a small feed of oats, on the morning 
of his going out to hounds. The fox-hound gets no food 
on the day of his chase. The greyhound, like the fox- 
hound, is fed the day before. The race-horse gets only 
half a feed of oats on the morning of his race. 

54. Thus men and animals, intended for a hard day's 
work, depend on the stamina acquired by previous train- 
ing, and not on immediate stimulus. It is evident, that 
had mankind never indulged in stimulants or narcotics, 
they would have been earlier advanced in civilization, 
humanity, and morality — would have had stronger phy- 
sical and higher mental powers. Let us read only the 
history of the great Franklin. He who smokes and 
drinks has his mind stupefied, like the opium-eater, or 
the wine-bibber, or the brandy, whisky, or ale-drinker. 
It is only what his mind has previously learned that he 
makes, or can make use of. He cannot advance a step 
farther. 

55. The cases of diseased brain and spinal cord oc- 

15 



46 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

curring in tobacco-smokers, afford strong proof that to- 
bacco, besides affecting the nervous system through the 
medium of the nerves of the nose and mouth, when 
smoked, must also enter into the circulation of the blood, 
by being mixed with the saliva, and swallowed, and thus 
taken up by the lacteals or absorbents. The latter pro- 
cess must take place in those who use tobacco in the 
form of snuff, as it must often be swallowed, especially 
during sleep. It must also occur in those who chew or 
quid the weed. T^e relaxation of the bowels, termina- 
ting in obstinate diarrhoea, proves that it passes down 
the alimentary canal with the saliva, even in the smoker. 

56. When nux vomica, or its alkaloid, strychnia, is 
prescribed in small doses, several days elapse before its 
effects on the constitution are exemplified ; and, in like 
manner, a considerable period intervenes before its effects 
leave the system, after it has been discontinued. The 
same apparent result seems to take place with tobacco. 
It is evidently a cumulative poison, as is shown by its 
ultimately producing softening of the brain, and fre- 
quently amaurosis. • 

57. In the above view of the action of tobacco, I am 
supported by Mr. Solly, in his interesting and able Lec- 
ture on Paralysis, published in the Lancet for the 13th 
December, 1856, and of which I have given a brief ex- 
tract. There is also an interesting paper in the Lancet 
for 3d January, 1857, by Mr. Fenn of Nayland, Suffolk, 
wherein he states that " he has seen very mild cases of 
typhoid fever rendered fatal from the excessive use of 
tobacco." The extreme liability to attacks of typhus 
fever is now well ascertained; for every febrile state, 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 47 

from the most simple, even influenza, is liable to dege- 
nerate into various typhoid forms. A fuller extract from 
Mr. Fenn's paper I have already given. 

58 The incurable nature of ulceration of the tongue 
led me to consider whether the poison might not pervade 
the sanguiniferous system, otherwise why should the 
removal of the diseased mass by ligature, or the knife, 
prove unsuccessful in eradicating the contaminated tis- 
sue ? Dr. B ? s and Dr. Tod's case of the woman's 

tongue, show satisfactorily that the teeth had nothing to 

do in producing the ulcerated surface. Dr. B 's 

case, and Dr. Tod's case of M. J T 's demon- 
strate, that neither the knife nor the ligature had any 
effect in arresting the disease; and Sir Astley Cooper's 
views of the inutility of these means in checking the 
disease in Dr. B 's case, confirm these — the consti- 
tution of the unfortunate individual having been poi- 
soned with the ensnaring weed, through his ignorance 
of the nature of his hallowed luxury. 

59. Representations have been made of the ulcera- 
tion of the tongue as it occurred in Dr. B 's case 

and also Mr. J T 's. I have here to ac- 
knowledge the handsome liberality of Dr. B -, in 

permitting me to copy the interesting case of an affec- 
tionate friend, and the admirable sketches of the dis- 
eased tongue, made by that talented draughtsman, Mr. 

James Stewart. Dr. B acknowledges that he was 

an excessive smoker himself for years, until he became 
so nervous, that he could not steady his hand, when he 
u threw away tobacco forever." Here I may remark, 
how many narrow escapes of having cancer of the 



48 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

tongue must every smoker have had, when we consider 
that every one with a disordered stomach has had one 
or more pimples on his tongue, which, had they been 

irritated with pungent tobacco smoke, as in Dr. B 's 

case, would in all probability have ended in ulceration, 
becoming cancerous, and ending fatally. 

60. Although the subject is yet far from being ex- 
hausted, " the tobacco controversy " has nevertheless 
elicited much additional information, valuable because 
practical, as to the effect of smoking on the human 
body, both in a physiological, pathological, and thera- 
peutic aspect. The liberal and enlightened policy of 
the editor of the Lancet, by opening the columns of his 
journal as the medium for impartial investigation, de- 
serves the warmest expression of thanks, not less from 
the profession than the public ; and I make no apology 
for availing myself of the many interesting contributions 
which have there appeared on the subject. 

61. Experience is the only test to confirm the deci- 
sions of truth, and refute the errors of mere authority. 
But its verdict unfortunately is in many^ases injuriously 
delayed, in consequence of long-protracted and mislead- 
ing exculpatory pleadings. " The evil that men do lives 
after them; the good is oft interred with their bones;" 
and this holds equally true with the customs, habits, etc. 
of a country. The evils these occasion, live after them. 
Their extent and magnitude are only known after thei/ 
have become so apparent that they cannot longer be de- 
nied. And if the controversy evoked on the injurious 
effects of excessive smoking, should gradually arrest the 
progress of so dangerous a luxury, and sensibly diminish 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 49 

a mischief which is unlimited, in a certain sense, almost 
either as to extent or duration, the author will rest satis- 
fied that his own exertions, with the powerful co-opera- 
tion which he has received from others, have not been 
in vain. He would earnestly indeed rejoice, if the na- 
tional authorities here would adopt the same regulations 
which obtain in Switzerland. There, we are told, " that 
the Governing Council of the Canton of Berne have just 
enacted, that young men who are as yet unconfirmed 
(confirmation is administered in Switzerland between 
the fifteenth and sixteenth year) are prohibited from 
using tobacco." As the Council came to this determi- 
nation in consequence of their belief in the deleterious 
effects of tobacco on the human frame, it seems equally 
to be the duty of the Council to extend their regulations, 
by a general prohibition, when they consider that the 
health of the community is injured by the use of tobacco. 
62. I consider it my duty to append Dr. Hassall's truly 
valuable and warning remarks on tobacco smoking — to 
whose long and truly invaluable practical labors in the 
field, as well as by his writings on "adulterations de- 
tected," the nation owes a debt of gratitude which never 
can be repaid. " Tobacco owes its chief properties to 
the presence of two active jwinciples, termed nicotina 
and nicotianin. The first of these, nicotina } is thus 
characterized : It is liquid and volatile, with an acrid 
burning taste, and possesses the strong odor of tobacco; 
to test-paper, it shows an alkaline reaction ; water, ether, 
alcohol, and the oils dissolve it. It combines with va- 
rious organic and inorganic acids to form salts. 1000 
grains of tobacco yield, according to the kind used, from 

D 



50 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

3.86 to 11.28 grains of nicotina. The action of nicotina 
on the human frame is that of an acrid, narcotic poison, 
causing giddiness and vomiting, and, in doses of a few 
grains, death. 

" The properties of the latter, nicotianin, are as fol- 
low : It is a concrete oily substance, having the smell 
of tobacco, and a bitter taste. It is volatile ; the dilute 
acids and water do not dissolve it, but it is soluble in 
liquor potasses and ether. In swallowing nicotianin, the 
same sensation is produced on the tongue and fauces as 
by tobacco. A grain administered internally, quickly 
caused giddiness, nausea, and retching. It also produces 
sneezing when applied to the nose. Six pounds of to- 
bacco leaves furnish about eleven grains of nicotianin. 
It is also known as i concrete oil of tobacco,' and ' tobacco 
camphor' 

" Both these active principles and constituents have 
been shown, by Zeise and Melsens, to be present in the 
smoke of tobacco : they are, therefore, undoubtedly not de- 
stroyed by the combustion of the tobacco, whether used 
in the form of cut tobacco or cigars ; but in the act of 
smoking they are inhaled, and thus drawn into the mouth, 
fauces, lungs, and even the stomach, especially when the 
saliva, impregnated with the tobacco smoke, is swallowed. 
Further, that these active constituents are actually ab- 
sorbed, and make their way into the system, is proved 
from the sickness, giddiness, and death-like faintness 
experienced by those who are unaccustomed to smoking ; 
that they are absorbed to some degree, if not to the same 
extent, in the case of habitual smokers of tobacco, is un- 
questionable — the difference in the effects- experienced 



PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 51 

being due to the circumstance of the system becoming 
more inured to its use, and therefore less susceptible of 
its influence." 

63. In a moral and physical point of view, the im- 
portance of the inquiry cannot be over-estimated. The 
strongest proof of this, is attested by the fact, that, du- 
ring last year, not less than twenty-eight million lbs. 
(28,000,000) of tobacco were consumed in Great Bri- 
tain, exclusive of the large portion smuggled, which can- 
not be estimated. 

64. A vast load of responsibility is devolved upon the 
members of the medical profession, who are, if not the 
sole, by far the most competent section of the commu- 
nity to pronounce a judgment on, and solve so important 
an inquiry. So far as the discussion has progressed, the 
three following deductions have been indisputably esta- 
blished by unquestionable medical testimony : 

1st. That excessive smoking, long persisted in t is in- 
jurious to man in the highest degree — physically, men- 
tally, and morally. 

2dly. That the commencement of smoking in early 
life, and indulgence in the practice early in the day, 
cannot be too strongly condemned, as leading to most 
pernicious effects on the constitution. 

Sdly. That smoking, even in what is called a moderate 
degree, is, to say the very least of it, indirectly injurious, 
more especially to the young; because it is not denied, 
it acts as an inducement to drinking — thus becoming 
the source of intemperance, and all its accompanying 
evils. It is notorious that the practices are, almost 
without exception, inseparably associated. The remark 



52 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

has become a maxim : u Smoking induces drinking, 
drinking jaundice, and jaundice death." 

65. If insurance companies would act upon Mr. Solly's 
test — the peculiar morbid condition of the palate and 
fauces as proving inveterate smoking — and raise the 
annual premiums to smokers in whom such appearances 
were detected, as on hazardous insurances, the practice 
of smoking might receive that great and salutary check, 
from motives of self-interest, which admonition and 
warning, as to the evils resulting from the noxious weed, 
have failed to effect : and the detection, by Mr. Erichsen, 
of the mixture of so many deleterious and poisonous 
ingredients in the manufacture of snuff, it is to be ex- 
pected, may, in like manner, operate upon the selfish feel- 
ings of the snuffer, and powerfully tend to root out his 
disgusting habit. 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 53 



CHAPTER III. 

COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 

66. In his valuable work on the "Nature and Treat- 
ment of Stomach and Urinary Diseases/' Dx Prout, at 
pages 24 and 25, observes : " There is an article much 
used in various ways, though not as an aliment, the 
deleterious effects of which on the assimilating organs, 
&c, require to be briefly noticed, viz., tobacco. Although 
confessedly one of the most virulent poisons in nature, 
yet such is the fascinating influence of this noxious 
weed, that mankind resort to it in every mode they can 
devise, to ensure its stupefying and pernicious agency. 
Tobacco disorders the assimilating functions in general, 
but particularly as I believe, the assimilation of the sac- 
charine principle. I have never, indeed, been able to 
trace the development of oxalic acid to the use of to- 
bacco; but that some analogous and equally poisonous 
principle (probably of an acid nature,) is generated in 
certain individuals by its abuse, is evident from their 
cachectic looks, and from the dark and often greenish- 
yellow tint of their blood. The severe and peculiar 
dyspeptic symptoms sometimes produced by inveterate 
snuff-taking are well known; and I have more than once 
seen such cases terminate fatally with malignant disease 
of the stomach and liver. Great smokers, also, espe- 



54 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

cially those who employ short pipes and cigars, are said 
to be liable to cancerous affections of the lips. But it 
happens with tobacco, as with deleterious articles of 
diet, the strong and healthy suffer comparatively little, 
while the weak and predisposed to disease fall victims 
to its poisonous operation. Surely, if the dictates of 
reason were allowed to prevail, an article so injurious to 
the health, and so offensive in all its forms and modes 
of employment, would speedily be banished from com- 
mon use." 

67. Professor Petit-Radel is said to have died of cancer 
of the pylorus, consequent on smoking tobacco. 

68. Bouissiron states that he has seen many smokers 
perish of atrophy. 

69. Pereira, in his valuable work on Chemistry and 
Materia Medica, page 1426, states, that " Nicotina is an 
energetic poison, almost equalling in activity hydrocy- 
anic acid." 

70. In the Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales for 
1821, two brothers are said to have smoked until they 
died of apoplexy — the one after smoking seventeen 
pipes, the other eighteen pipes. Fourcroy cites several 
instances of the destructive effects of tobacco in his 
translation of Baniazzani. The little daughter of a to- 
bacco merchant died in frightful convulsions, from 
having slept in a chamber where a great quantity of 
tobacco had been rasped. An intoxicated soldier swal- 
lowed his saliva impregnated with tobacco, awoke in 
strong convulsions, and nearly became insane. I have 
strong suspicions that such a melancholy event as the 
latter must have occurred frequently. 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 55 

71. Orfila, in his General System of Toxicology, 1817, 
Vol. II., page 211, quotes the following experiments to 
show the poisonous qualities of tobacco : " Sir Benjamin 
Brodie injected into the rectum of several dogs, and one 
cat, from one to four ounces of a strong infusion of to- 
bacco ; these animals became insensible, motionless, and 
all died in less than ten minutes \ the pulsations of the 
heart were no more sensible a minute before death; one 
of them only vomited. Their bodies were opened imme- 
diately after death ; the heart was very much distended, 
and no longer contracted." 

72. Sir B. Brodie states in his Physiological Researches, 
published in 1851, under Effects of Vegetable Poisons : 
" We may conclude from these experiments, that the 
empyreumatic oil of tobacco occasions death, by destroy- 
ing the functions of the brain, without directly acting on 
the circulation. In other words, its effects are similar 
to those of alcohol, the juice of aconite, and the essential 
oil of almonds." 

73. In volume seventh of the Biographical Dictionary, 
the Rev. Mr. Bose, under the life of Bichard Fletcher, 
Bishop of London, informs us, that "he (the Bishop) 
was very fond of tobacco, then little known, and that 
Camden imputes his death to the immoderate use of it." 
And Camden, in his Annals, 3d edition, p. 469, transla- 
tion, states that u Bichard Fletcher, Bishop of London, 
a courtly prelate, who, while by immoderate use of to- 
bacco he smothered the cares he took by means of his 
unlucky marriage, and by the Queen misliked (who did 
not so well like of married bishops), breathed . out his 
life." The Bishop died in 1596. 



56 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

74. Dr. Cleland, in his treatise on the Properties 
Chemical and Medical, of Tobacco, states that " the cir- 
cumstance which induced Amurath the Fourth to be so 
strict in punishing tobacco smokers, was the dread which 
he entertained of the population being thereby dimin- 
ished, from the antiphrodisiac property which he sup- 
posed tobacco to possess" — vide Cleland on the History 
and Properties, Chemical and Medical, of Tobacco, p. Gr. 
If, as I understand, Amurath is synonymous with Mourad, 
the antiphrodisiac properties of tobacco must have been 
a subject of credence and observation so early as the first 
part of the seventeenth century, the period of the reign 
of the fourth Amurath or Mourad, extending from 1622 
to 1640. 

The Counter-blast of King James had considerably 
preceded the prohibitory punishment against the use of 
tobacco by the Ottoman Sultan. 

75. The injurious properties of tobacco are determined 
by the following analysis of its chemical constituents by 
Professor Johnston, of Durham, in his Chemistry of 
Common Life : " These are three in number : a volatile 
oil, a volatile alkali, and an empyreumatic oil." .... 
" The volatile oil has the odor of tobacco, and possesses 
a bitter taste. On the mouth and throat it produces a 
sensation similar to that caused by tobacco smoke. When 
applied to the nose, it occasions sneezing, and when taken 
internally, it gives rise to giddiness, nausea, and an in- 
clination to vomit." " The volatile alkali has the odor 
of tobacco, an acrid, burning, long-continuing tobacco 
taste, and possesses narcotic and very poisonous quali- 
ties. In this latter respect, it is scarcely inferior to 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 57 

prussic acid — a single drop being sufficient to kill a dog. 
Its vapor is so irritating, that it is difficult to breathe in 
a room in which a single drop has been evaporated. The 
reader may recollect the great sensation produced in 
1851, by the trial of the Comte de Bocarnie, at Mons, 
and his subsequent execution, for poisoning his brother- 
in-law with nicotin. A hundred pounds of the dry to- 
bacco-leaf yield about seven pounds of nicotin. In 
smoking a hundred grains of tobacco, therefore, say a 
quarter of an ounce, there may be drawn into the mouth 
two grains or more of one of the most subtle of all known 
poisons." u The empyreumatic oil is acrid and disagree- 
able to the taste, narcotic, and poisonous. One drop ap- 
plied to the tongue of a cat brought on convulsions, and 
in two minutes occasioned death. The Hottentots are 
said to kill snakes by putting a drop of it on their 
tongues. Under its influence, the reptiles die as in- 
stantaneously as if killed by an electric shock. It ap- 
pears to act nearly in the same way as prussic acid." 

" The crude oil is supposed to be the juice of the 
cursed hebenon/' described by Shakspeare as a distil- 
ment. 

" Sleeping within mine orchard, 
My custom always of the afternoon, 
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, 
With juice of cursed hebanon in a vial, 
And in the porches of mine ear did pour 
The leperous distillment : whose effect 
Holds such an enmity with blood of man, 
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through 
The natural gates and alleys of the body; 
And with a sudden vigour it doth posset 
And curd, like eager droppings into milk, 



58 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

The thin and wholesome blood ; so did it mine; 
And a most instant tetter bark'd about, 
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, 
All my smooth body." 

Hamlet — Act i., Scene v. 

"The cigar, especially if smoked to the end, dis- 
charges directly into the mouth of the smoker every- 
thing that is produced by the burning. Thus, the more 
rapidly the leaf burns and the smoke is inhaled, the 
greater the proportion of the poisonous substances which 
is drawn into the mouth. And finally, when the saliva 
is retained, the fullest effect of all the three narcotic 
ingredients of the smoke will be produced upon the 
nervous system of the smoker. It is not surprising, 
therefore, that those who have been accustomed to smoke 
cigars, especially of strong tobacco, should find any other 
pipe both tame and tasteless, except the short black 
cutty, which has lately come into favor among invete- 
rate smokers. Such persons live in an almost constant 
state of narcotism or narcotic drunkenness, which must 
ultimately affect the health even of the strongest. 

" The chewer of tobacco, it will be understood from 
the above description, does not experience the effects of 
the poisonous oil which is produced during the burning 
of the leaf. The natural volatile oil and the nicotin are 
the substances which act upon him. These, from the 
quantity of them which he involuntarily swallows or ab- 
sorbs, impair his appetite, and gradually weaken his 
powers of digestion. 

" The same remarks apply to the taker of snuff. But 
his drus; is still milder than that of the chewer. During 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 59 

the first fermentation which the leaf undergoes in pre- 
paring it for the manufacturer of snuff, and again during 
the second fermentation, after it is ground, a large pro- 
portion of the nicotin escapes, or is decomposed. The 
ammonia produced during these fermentations is partly 
the result of this decomposition. Further, the artificial 
drying or roasting to which tobacco is exposed in fitting 
it for the dry snuffs, expels a portion of the natural vola- 
tile oil, as well as an additional portion of the natural 
volatile alkali or nicotin. Manufactured snuff, therefore, 
as it is drawn up into the nose, and especially dried snuff, 
is much less rich in active ingredients than the natural 
leaf. Even the rappees, though generally made from 
the strongest Virginian and European tobaccoes, con- 
taining five or six per cent, of nicotin, retain only two 
per cent, when fully manufactured." 

76. The following extracts are from King James's 
"Counterblast to Tobacco," pp. 213-222 — a work from 
its rarity inaccessible to the general reader, and which 
may be considered not uninteresting by many, consider- 
ing the character of the royal author, and the early 
period at which his remarks were published, nearly two 
centuries and a half ago : 

" In my opinion," says the royal commentator, " there 
cannot be a more base and yet more hurtful corruption 
in a country, than is the vile use (or rather abuse) of 
taking tobacco in this kingdom, which hath moved me 
shortly to discover the abuses thereof in the following 
little pamphlet." In the Counterblast to Tobacco, he 
remarks : " That the manifold abuses of this vile custom 
of Tobacco-taking may the better be espied, it is fit, 



60 TOBACCO: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 

that you first enter into consideration, both of the first 
originall thereof, and likewise of the reasons of the first 
entry thereof into this country. For certainly, as such 
customs that have their first institution, either from a 
godly, necessary, or honourable ground, and are first 
brought in by the means of some worthy, vertuous, and 
great personage, are ever and most justly holden in great 
and reverend estimation and account, by all wise, vir- 
tuous, and temperate spirits, so should it by the con- 
trary, justly bring a disgrace into that sort of customs, 
which having their originall from base corruption and 
barbarity, do in like sort make their first entry into a 
country, by an inconsiderate and childish affectation of 
novelty, as is the true case of the first invention of 
Tobacco-taking, and of the first entry thereof among 
us. For Tobacco was first found out by some of the 
barbarous Indians." 

" Tobacco is, as you use or rather abuse it, a branch 
of the sin of drunkenness, which is the root of all sins/' 
" To take a custom in anything that cannot be left again, 
is most harmful to the people of any land. Mollicies 
and delicacy were the wreck and overthrow, first of the 
Persian and next of the Eoman empire. And this very 
custom of taking Tobacco is even at this day accounted 
so effeminate among the Indians themselves, as in the 
market they will offer no price for a slave to be sold, 
whom they find to be a great tobacco-taker." 

" Is it not a great vanity, that a man cannot heartily 
welcome his friend now, but straight they must be in 
hand with tobacco ; no, it is become in place of a cure, a 
point of good fellowship, and he that will refuse to take 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 61 

a pipe of tobacco among his fellows (though by his own 
election he would rather feel the savour of a sinke), is 
accounted peevish and no good company, even as they 
do with tippling in the cold eastern countries. Yea, the 
mistress cannot in a more mannerly kind entertain her 
servant, than by giving her, out of her fair hand, a pipe 
of tobacco." 

" Moreover, which is a great iniquity and against all 
humanity, the husband shall not be ashamed to reduce 
thereby his delicate, wholesome, and clean-complexioned 
wife to that extremity, that either she must also corrupt 
her sweet breath therewith, or else resolve to live in a 
perpetual stinking torment." 

He concludes thus in reference to smoking : " Have 
you not reason then to be ashamed, and to forbear this 
filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so foolishly received, 
and so grossly mistaken, in the right use thereof." "A 
custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful 
to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, 
stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible 
Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." 

Vide " Workes of the Most High and Mightie Prince 
James, by the grace of God, King of Great Britain," 
&c, 1616. 

77. The following extract is from an able article on 
the United States, which appeared in the London Spec- 
tator of July 5th, 1856 : 

" We have been long familiar with the fact, that the 
manners and social habits of Americans are not to our 
taste, and that few persons who could obtain a respect- 
able maintenance in Europe, would find the change to 
16 



62 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

the United States a change for the better 

It is in startling contrast with our ordinary train of 
thought about the United States, to hear it even whis- 
pered as a possibility, that the race of men which inhabit 
the country is undergoing a process of physical and 
moral degeneracy; that the symptoms we have been 
accustomed to consider as evidences of growth are really 
proofs of decay; that the people are, like medlars, rotten 
before they are ripe ; and that a premature senility is 
the true characteristic of the great Anglo-Celtic Republic 
of the West. That such a theory should have been 
started, gives one a shock, which does not pass off when 
the facts upon which it professes to rest are calmly con- 
sidered. It is said, for instance, that the bulk of "Ameri- 
cans live thoroughly unwholesome lives; consuming 
inordinate quantities of spirituous liquors from youth 
upward, and at all hours of the day smoking and chewing 
tobacco to excess, eating greedily, and giving themselves 
no time to digest their food, always in a bustle and ex- 
citement, enjoying neither quiet nor rational recreation, 
nor domestic peace. And how few Americans has any 
Englishman known of whom he could say, that they 
were genial or happy! what an anxious, nervous, hag- 
gard expression of face, is that by which we instinctively 
recognize a Yankee everywhere! how completely the 
manner, and countenance, and figure of the typical 
Yankee answer to this account of the usual life of the 

people ! What if the bad habits of men 

and women, acting with a climate that tends to exhaust 
vitality, should really in a few generations have produced 
a palpable inferiority of physique ? The positive asser- 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 63 

tion of this degeneration would indeed be most unphilo- 
sophical, on a basis of facts such as are patent to 
common observation ; but that these facts are patent, is 
sufficient to excite the alarm and sharpen the self- 
watchfulness of all classes of Americans, who can look 
forward to the tremendous consequences of a degrada- 
tion of the national nerve and muscle, through intempe- 
rance and had habits of living The 

fashionable classes of American society are more noto- 
rious for their luxury than for their refinement or 
ambition." 

78. I am given to understand that there exists a rule 
among a large and influential religious sect, when a 
student presents himself as a candidate for examination 
for ordination, which compels him to answer, Whether 
he smokes tobacco, or uses it in any form ? If he con- 
fesses he does so, he is remitted to his studies until he 
gives it up, and can aver that he has " thrown away to- 
bacco for ever." 

79. The great Wesley, I believe, first suggested the 
rule, which still obtains, that no minister connected with 
the Wesleyan body should use snuff or tobacco, unless 
prescribed by a physician. 

80. Adam Clarke, LL. D., a Methodist divine, pub- 
lished in 1837, among his detached pieces, a dissertation 
on " the Use and Abuse of Tobacco." It is unnecessary 
for me to enter at present into a formal criticism of his 
treatise, but in referring to such authority in support of 
my views, I may be permitted to quote the following 
case. At page 29, he says : "A person of my acquaint- 
ance, who had been an immoderate snuff-taker for up- 



64 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

wards of forty years, was frequently afflicted with a 
sudden suppression of breathing, occasioned by a para- 
lytic state of the muscles which serve for respiration. 
These affections grew more and more alarming, and 
seriously threatened her life. The only relief she got in 
such cases, was from a cup of cold water poured down 
her throat. This became so necessary to her, that she 
could never venture to attend even a place of worship, 
without having a small vessel of water with her, and a 
friend to administer it. At last she left off snuff; the 
muscles re-acquired their proper tone, and, in a short 
time after, she was entirely cured of a disorder, occa- 
sioned solely by her attachment to the snuff-box, and to 
which she had nearly fallen a victim." 

81. Anton, in his interesting " Retrospect of a Mili- 
tary Life," relates the death of one of the sergeants of 
the 42d Eegiment from smoking tobacco, which appa- 
rently had induced apoplexy. See page 154. On con- 
versing with Mr. Anton, he states that the sergeant was 
an excessive smoker of the weed. 

82. The Paris correspondent of the New Orleans Pica- 
yune, in recording the death of the poet Berat, says : 
" Berat was not forty-five years old. He, too, was slain 
by that disease which is so fell a destroyer to our con- 
temporaries, and especially to Frenchmen — the softening 
of the spinal marrow. Trousseau attributes to the ex- 
cessive use of tobacco the fatal effects on the nervous 
system. Eoger Collard, who died in the dawn of a 
most brilliant career, some three years ago, of this ter- 
rible disease, attributed his untimely end to his cigar. 
Count D'Orsay was another victim of this disease, and 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 65 

his death made a profound impression on the Emperor, 
who at once sent his physician, Bretonneau, to whom 
the Count complained of fatigue in all his members — 
of enervation. Dr. Bretonneau replied, 'You surely 
smoke some twelve or fifteen cigars a-day. Smoke less. 
Abstain, if you can, altogether from smoking, and you 
will end these symptoms of weakness and enervation/ " 

83. In the able Clinical Lecture of Mr. Solly, Surgeon 
of St. Thomas's Hospital, on Paralysis, there occurs the 
following statement : 

" There was another habit, also, in which my patient 
indulged, and which I cannot but regard as the curse 
of the present age — I mean smoking. Now, don't be 
frightened, my young friends, I am not going to give a 
sermon against smoking — that is not my business; but 
it is my business to point out to you all the various and 
insidious causes of general paralysis, and smoking is one 
of them, i" know of no single vice which does so much 
harm as smoking. It is a snare and a delusion. It 
soothes the excited nervous system at the time, to render 
it more irritable and more feeble ultimately. It is like 
opium in that respect; and if you want to know all the 
wretchedness which this drug can produce, you should 
read the 6 Confessions of an Opium-eater/ I can always 
distinguish by his complexion a man who smokes much; 
and the appearance which the fauces present, is an un- 
erring guide to the habits of such a man. I believe 
that cases of general paralysis are more frequent in 
England than they used to be, and I suspect that 
smoking tobacco is one of the causes of that increase." 
— Vide Lancet for 13th December, 1856, page 641. 

E 



63 TOBACCO: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 

84. I lately visited a gentleman in a Lunatic Asylum, 
laboring under general paralysis, and his mind becoming 
idiotical. On corresponding with his former medical 
attendant, I understand his habits were, that he lived 
temperately as regarded drink, but worked hard in a 
mercantile house, and smoked to excess ; the phrase he 
makes use of is — that "he blazed away at a fearful 
rate." 

85. In Dr. William Henderson's work on " Plain 
Rules for Improving Health," second edition, pages 87, 
88, 89, and 261, there are cases of dyspepsia, palpita- 
tion of the heart, of insanity, etc. produced by using 
tobacco. One gentleman, "from having been one of the 
most healthy and fearless men, became one of the most 
timid. He could not present a petition, much less say 
a word concerning it, though he was a practising lawyer. 
He was afraid to be left alone at night." 

In the cases of insanity mentioned by him, the patients 
" had used tobacco to excess, though perfectly temperate 
otherwise, as regarded drink." 

The reader is referred to pages 18 and 52, for further 
information on mania. 

86. In the Lancet for 8d January, 1857, Mr. Fenn 
thus describes the result of his investigations on the 
effects of tobacco : 

" Tobacco," says he, " has the effect of relaxing the 
skin and mucous membranes, causing the latter to pour 
out their secretions more freely, and to shed the epithe- 
lium more rapidly; at the same time, the sensibility of 
the nervous system is greatly depressed, and the vital 
force diminished. On account of its softening and re- 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 67 

taxing effect upon the mucous membrane of the bowels, 
it is greatly resorted to in habitual constipation. But 
it will be seen that this weakening influence is exerted 
upon the organ i liable to be most seriously affected in 
typhoid fever, and very frequently is the predisposing 
cause of the uncontrollable diarrhoea and haemorrhage 
which occur in such cases. / have seen very mild cases 
of typhoid fever rendered fatal, from the excessive use 
of tobacco, either from diarrhoea or peritonitis, the result 
of perforation. Now perforation scarcely ever occurs 
until the patient is moribund, and the body semi-putrid ; 
but the immoderate use of tobacco will predispose to 
perforation under very different circumstances. For in- 
stance, a gentleman in my practice had progressed very 
favorably to the fifteenth day of typhoid fever: the 
diarrhoea was very moderate, and the symptoms altoge- 
ther so mild as to call for a purely expectant treatment, 
nourishment, with very little stimulant, sufficing to keep 
the patient in a very fair condition from day to day. On 
the fifteenth day his bowels were relaxed at 6 in the 
morning ; at 5 p. m. he got out to have his bed made, 
and as his bowels had not moved since 6 a.m., he thought 
it might save getting out again if he could evacuate them 
at the same time ; for this purpose he made a straining 
effort, and almost instantly felt something give way; a 
violent pain ran rapidly across the region of the bladder, 
and soon diffused itself over the whole abdomen; tym- 
pany occurred within an hour, and in twenty-four hours 
he died from peritonitis, the result of perforation of the 
small intestine. A milder case than this I never saw, 
but the patient was accustomed to smoke ten or twelve 



68 TOBACCO: ITS USE AND ABUSE. 

cigars daily. I could quote other cases almost parallel, 
ichere the immoderate use of tobacco destroyed all the 
chances of recovery r , in otherwise favorable or merely 
doubtful cases of typhoid." How many of our brave 
soldiers must have died at Varna, Burmah, and other 
localities, where diarrhoea, dysentery, and cholera were 
epidemic, and where tobacco was consumed immode- 
rately ! I should imagine that the greater number of 
those who died suddenly, and in agony, must have had 
perforated intestine. 

The reader is referred to page 53, Prout's experience, 
which in a measure confirms this. 

87. Dr. B , an experienced physician, has kindly 

communicated the following interesting and satisfactory 
case of a near relative, who fell a victim to tobacco 
smoking, which produced cancerous ulceration of the 
tongue ; also a graphic delineation of the disease. 

Mr. A., a gentleman about fifty-eight years of age, of 
a strong wiry frame and healthy constitution, none of 
whose relations had ever had a cancerous affection, was 
observed, in 1831, to articulate with difficulty — his 
tongue being too large for his mouth. On being inter- 
rogated by a medical friend, a relation of his own, he 
acknowledged that he was a devoted victim to the weed. 
His tongue at this time was enlarged, firm, and coated 
with a white crust, somewhat resembling the confec- 
tionery named kisses. There was a sulcus in the centre 
of the tongue, with a bright red line at the base. The 
sore was washed with a solution of the chlorate of soda, 
before this sketch was taken. His medical attendant, 
to induce him to give up smoking, informed him that 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. CO 

the disease of liis tongue would kill him ; so that he at 
once " threw away tobacco forever." 

From this time the disease progressively got worse. 
In May, 1833, the patient, accompanied by his medical 
relation, visited London, and consulted Sir Astley Cooper, 
when the patient put the following question to Sir Astley : 
u Had I come early enough, could I have been cured ?" 
— to which Sir Astley replied : " Sir, there never was a 
time early enough to have warranted an operation : every 
fibre, every papilla of your tongue is diseased ; and it 
would have been merciful to have clapped a pistol to 
your head, the instant the disease began." Sir Astley 
prescribed for him, but to no purpose, as the disease 
increased with a rapidity inconceivable ; for by the end 
of June, the anterior portion had mouldered away (so 
graphically described by his medical attendant) \ the 
tongue being previously cleansed by the chlorate of 
soda, in doing which the fetor was intolerable. He 
now suffered acute pain, and was obliged to take morphia 
every night. His pulse was from 120 to 160. In July, 
his spirits began to be dreadfully depressed, accompanied 
with pains in his head, and he at this time remained 
chiefly in bed. 

By the 24th, the ulceration had extended to the 
fauces, and the glands at the angle of the lower jaw 
bone became swollen. Deglutition was now difficult 
and painful, and his strength began to fail — but still no 
haemorrhage. 

By the middle of August, the tongue had mouldered 
away — the stump presenting an irregular, lumpy sur- 
face, covered with a flocculent, dirty, greenish-white 



70 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

deposit, and the ulceration extending on the left side to 
the os hyoides, accompanied with a most offensive dis- 
charge. There was a spasmodic difficulty in swallowing, 
a troublesome cough, with difficult expectoration, great 
mental depression, and hallucination of mind. 

On the 25th of this month, for the first time, an oozing 
of arterial blood took place, but not to any extent. His 
pulse was 130, and very weak — some aberration of mind. 
Cough very incessant during the night, and he appeared 
in great agony. 

In the beginning of September he became very weak, 
so that he was confined to bed, passing restless nights, 
with profuse perspirations. His mind much affected, 
breathing very difficult, with constant expectoration of 
viscid phlegm mixed with blood. When he attempted 
to swallow fluids, they were returned by the nostrils. 
The dressing the extensively-ulcerated surface caused 
severe pain, and the foetor was excessively offensive. The 
sub-maxillary glands were now greatly enlarged. Pulse 
generally above 120. 

By the 25th September, the whole of the uvula, velum, 
and tonsils were destroyed by the ulceration. The 
glands at the angle of the lower jaw larger and more 
painful. He was then unable to swallow, and hence 
could take no nourishment. 

From this to the 2d October, all his symptoms be- 
came aggravated, the salivation more profuse, the per- 
spirations more abundant, and the difficulty of breathing 
insupportable ; and after three hours of intense suffering 
he expired. "All the death-bed scenes and death-bed 
sufferings I had ever witnessed," says his medical 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 71 

friend, "were comparatively easy, to the individual 
agonies and gaspings for breath this kind and amiable 
man was destined to endure." His medical friend 
adds : " The disease is novel and unique to me" — " it 
has differed in its appearance and progress from any 
and every disease of the tongue that I have ever seen or 
read of." 

Professor Bennet, in his microscopic examination of a 
section of the late D. R/s tongue, goes to corroborate the 
above view. 

Query — If the ulceration differs from carcinoma, a 
smoker runs the risk of two diseases, viz., carcinomatous 
sarcoma, and carcinomatous nicotianum? 

A case precisely similar to Mr. A/s, I have received 
from my friend Dr. Tod, of Grilmore Place. 

88. A middle-aged woman, an inveterate smoker, was 
alarmed at seeing a small warty-looking growth in the 
centre of her tongue, which frequently gave her a sting- 
ing pain, and which she requested a neighbor to look at. 
She continued to smoke her pipe, never dreaming that 
the tobacco was the cause of her sufferings, until the 
excrescence began to ulcerate, which it did rapidly, and 
extended to the root of her tongue, destroying the ante- 
rior portion by sloughing, and ultimately destroying life 
in twelve months. 

89. J. T , setatis 46, consulted Dr, Tod, of Gil- 
more Place, in the middle of January, 1856, regarding 
a slight swelling on the right side of his tongue, which 
was attributed partly to decayed teeth, and partly to 
smoking tobacco. He consumed two ounces weekly with 
a pipe. His wife states, that whenever any thing agi- 



72 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

tated him, lie flew to the pipe, and smoked until ho 
trembled nervously. He " threw away tobacco for- 
ever." As three of the contiguous teeth were decayed, 
with ragged edges, they were immediately extracted, 
but without any benefit. In a short time, a fissure took 
place at the swollen point, which increasing, I was con- 
sulted, and, after a careful examination, it was pro- 
nounced cancerous, and recommended to be treated by 
ligature. On the 14th July, 1856, ligatures were passed 
from under the tongue to its upper surface, so as to in- 
clude all the disease; but on the fifth day, such smart 
haemorrhage took place from the central ligature, that 
they required to be removed, and the actual cautery ap- 
plied. The cautery was repeated very often in conse- 
quence of the bleeding occurring. [The manner of 
applying ligatures to the tongue, when affected with 
cancer, is delineated in Fig. 4 of Plate XXXVIII. of my 
Practical Surgery, 2d edition, and described at page 305 
of the same work.] 

In September following, the glands at the angle of 
the jaw became swollen, and threatened suffocation. 
The ulceration spread rapidly, involving the right half 
of the tongue. At this time he was sadly tormented 
with profuse salivation, and foe tor of breath. His pulse 
from first to last has never been under 100, but often 
above. 

Towards the end of October, fearful haemorrhage took 
place, requiring Dr. Tod to sit up all the night of the 
27th, applying one actual cautery at a black heat after 
another. Next day his tongue was swollen as if he had 
been severely salivated with mercury, the point pro- 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 73 

jecting an inch or two beyond the lips and teeth, and 
very turgid. 

3d November. — Tongue still tremendously swollen 
and pallid, causing perpetual exudation of the saliva, 
and preventing him swallowing. He is now much ema- 
ciated, and the pulse never under 110. The glands at 
the back of the tongue and neck are much increased in 
size. 

10th November. — His tongue now projects beyond 
his teeth fully two inches, and he cannot retract it. 
The teeth are beginning to indent themselves in the soft 
tongue, and threaten to cut it in two. His existence is 
now kept up, more by nutrient enemata, than by nourish- 
ment from the mouth, the difficulty of swallowing is so 
distressing. 

19th. — Dr. Tod nipped, with the bone pliers, the 
upper teeth parallel with the gum, which gave him some 
relief. 

3d December. — His face has a hideous appearance, 
from the protruded swollen tongue, which is daily be- 
coming more detached by the ulceration extending 
across, and from the enormously swollen glands of the 
neck. He is unable to swallow any quantity, and is 
therefore still nourished by enemata. In the night 
time, his breathing is so laborious, that it can be heard 
in the adjoining room. Smell of tongue still very 
offensive. 

22d. — At his solicitation we have this day put a liga- 
ture in the fossa, between the root and the projecting 
portion of the tongue, to facilitate the separation of the 
latter. While tightening the ligature, a point of the 



74 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

surface of the projected part bled a little, but soon 
stopped. We punctured the tumor below his chin, as 
it pointed, and the skin threatened to inflame and ulce- 
rate. Strumous-looking matter, whey-colored, with flakes 
of lymph, flowed. 

1st January, 1857. — Whenever the ligature is tight- 
ened, it threatens to bleed. He is now fearfully ema- 
ciated, pulse hardly perceptible, and he is delirious 
during the night. Bleeding occurs from time to time 
to the extent of an ounce or so, but is easily checked. 

4th. — For the last four days, life has been ebbing 
apace, but fortunately no pain of any consequence. He 
expired at 3 o'clock, p. m. He died more from inanition 
than any other cause. 

90. Upon investigation, I find that the late Dr. R 

fell a victim to the smoking of tobacco, and hence I give 
a brief description of his case, which has already been 
published, but with no reference to the cause — tobacco. 
I had myself often seen him smoking, and on inquiry 
at his nearest relatives', I understand that he was devoted 
to the custom. One of his relatives states, that he smoked 
till within two months of his death; and his biographer 
writes, that " in the evening he obtained temporary relief 
from a cigar." Now, unless Dr. R had been accus- 
tomed to the pernicious weed, he never would have been 
able, with an ulcerated tongue, to smoke a cigar. 

His biographer thus writes : " In the month of No- 
vember, 1847, a small blister appeared on his tongue, 
which before long opened into an ulcer, betraying the 
symptoms of cancer — a disease which, in spite of the 
advancement of medicine, is still almost synonymous 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 75 

with protracted^ unappeasable torture, and painful, lin- 
gering death." 

In May, 1848, he consulted the surgical staff of Lon- 
don, from Sir Benjamin Brodie downwards, who tried to 
dissuade him from an operation ; so that he returned to 
Scotland. 

In July, 1848, the ulcerated surface was the size of a 
five-shilling piece, and soon afterwards a lymphatic gland 
appeared enlarged on the right side of his neck. On the 
last day of August, 1848, he prevailed on a dexterous 
operator to excise it, which was accordingly done 
most scientifically. In a week, trifling bleeding super- 
vened. 

Professor Bennet, of this University, a most profound 
physiologist, examined the excised portion of the tongue, 
and thus remarks : 

" I took the utmost pains to make out all the facts 
connected with the structure of this lesion ; and it will 
be seen, on comparing the figures representing it with 
those illustrating the formation of cancerous growths, 
that they differ materially. In this, as in most other 
cases of epithelial ulceration, the disease commenced at 
the surface, producing increased formation of epithelial 
cells, and great thickening and induration by their con- 
densation. A true cancer always commences below the 
epithelium, in the form of a white deposit, which soon 
appears as a nodule, and by its pressure subsequently 
causes ulceration through the mucous coat. A thin slice 
of the hardened schirrus-looking matter presented a very 
different appearance from that observed in similar slices 
removed from cancerous growths, and exhibiting nothing 



76 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

but epithelial scales, more or less condensed and pressed 
together." 

In November, 1848, the submaxillary glands enlarged, 
and were excised. These, when carefully examined, ex- 
hibited the same epithelial form of morbid growth as 
affects the tongue or face. 

On the 16th July, 1849, bleeding took place, and 
again on the 18th, violent haemorrhage occurred, fol- 
lowed by great exhaustion. For several days no food 
or drink was taken. Every function but breathing 
seemed suspended. When sensitiveness to all else ap- 
peared extinct, the consciousness of agony returned; 
and before the final close, which took place on the 30th 
of that month, the suffering, but for chloroform, would 
have been extreme. 

Here I may remark, that it seems as malignant and 
as painful a disease as exists ; so that, to the sufferer, it 
is immaterial whether it is cancroid or carcinomatous. 

Dr. R is described by his biographer as enjoying 

health in its fullest measure when attacked — "that he 
had a robust body, great physical strength, a sanguine 
temperament, a vigorous intellect, a happy temper, and 
a resolute, courageous spirit." 

91. A merchant in Dublin lately fell a victim to can- 
cer of the tongue, produced by smoking. A friend, 
whose authority is undoubted, visited him a few days 
before his death ; but the picture was so appalling that 
he could not make up his mind to see him again. He 
was sitting surrounded by an amiable family, writhing 
in agony, and unable to speak or swallow, from his tongue 
having mouldered away. He was reduced nine stone in 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 77 

a few months. I wrote his ordinary medical attendant 
to furnish me with a narrative of his case, which I have 
not yet obtained. 

92. From the cases I have recorded, I may presume 
that a person with a cancerous diathesis, or predisposi- 
tion or constitution, smoking a cutty pipe, must be liable 
to communicate the disease to another who might take 
up the same pipe. 

93. In the syphilitic constitution, the mucous mem- 
brane of the mouth is very prone to excitement and 
ulceration;- and if the latter is produced by smoking 
tobacco, the ulceration, in nine cases out of ten, will 
degenerate into cancerous or cancroid ulceration, and 
prove fatal, after lingering and cruel sufferings. 

94. Since I commenced the investigation of cancer 
of the tongue, I have been led to consider the structure 
of the tongue. 1st. Can the papillee be the termination 
of the nerves of sensation — the glossopharyngeal and 
the gustatory branches of the inferior maxillary nerves ? 
2dly. Do these nerves of sensation terminate in pulpy 
matter, like the other nerves of sensation ? Thus, the 
olfactory nerves spread like pulp on the mucous mem- 
brane of the nares, after passing through the cribriform 
plate of the ethmoid bone ) the optic nerve becomes the 
retina, after piercing the sclerotic coat of the eye ; the 
auditory is distributed on the labyrinth of the ear, viz. 
the cochlea, vestibule, and three semi-circular canals. 
The nerves of the fingers form the pacinian bodies. 

Reasoning from analogy, therefore, that four of the 
senses — smelling, seeing, hearing, and touching — are 
supplied with nerves which terminate in pulpy expanse, 
17 



78 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

it seems consistent to expect to find the same arrange- 
ment or distribution in the nerves of tasting. In Kbl- 
liker's able work on human histology, he describes the 
various tissues of the tongue as being very minute and 
delicate ; but he says : " I have been unable to make 
out, with certainty, how the nerves terminate ; yet every- 
thing appeared to indicate the existence of loops — not, 
however, in the simple papillae, but at their base." 
Kolliker quotes " Remark," who states that " the terminal 
branches of the glosso-pharyngeal and gustatory nerves 
form a very dense plexus before entering the papillae." 
The largest animals examined were the calf and sheep. 
It would appear necessary to examine the tongues of the 
horse and elephant, and the foetal tongue, like the foetal 
brain, according to Tiedemann. 

From the delicate texture of the tongue, must arise 
the difficulty of arresting disease in it, especially malig- 
nant ulceration, and when the constitution is poisoned 
with tobacco, for then it seems to spread from the one 
end to the other with electric rapidity. 

95. Since the publication of the preceding observa- 
tions by Sir A. Cooper, Professor Syme has excised the 
entire tongue in two cases, both of which were followed 
by pyaemia and death. One would have thought, that 
the frequency of so fatal an affection as pyaemia super- 
vening on the perineal section, would have made any 
surgeon acquainted with pathology, pause, before excising 
the tongue, which is equally vascular as the corpus spon- 
giosum urethrae, and much nearer the lungs, wherein 
pyaemia develops itself. But as John Bell says, " Ope- 
rations have come at last to represent the whole science." 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 79 

Such seems to be the case in the opinion at least of the 
so-called " First Surgeon in Europe." 

96. The best marked case of pyaemia is that of Cree ? 
occurring from the perineal section, which is detailed in 
my Practical Observations on the Treatment of Stricture 
of the Urethra. Professor Syme must have preserved 
in his note-book a few similarly fatal cases. From these 
two instances of pyemia supervening to excision of the 
tongue, and those following the perineal section, it is 
evident how pyaemia occurs so often after wounds in 
vascular tissues, especially veins — inflammation is first 
set up, and suppuration rapidly following, the pus be- 
comes absorbed by the veins, acts as a poison in the 
circulating system, and hence proves rapidly fatal. For 
a full detail of the first case, the reader is referred to 
two unanswerable letters by Dr. John Renton, in the 
Medical Times and Gazette for the 20th February and 
13th March, 1858. The two patients, more especially 
the second, Richard Ratcliff, are stated to have been 
great smokers of tobacco. 

97. The following is an interesting case of amaurosis, 
or blindness, from smoking tobacco : — J. W., a coach- 
builder, upwards of fifty years of age, had smoked for 
thirty years, generally two ounces of tobacco a week, 
when he became so blind as to be unable to work, or 
even walk through a crowded street. He applied to an 
eye dispensary, where the medical man, who is consid- 
ered a good oculist, told him that he labored under 
amaurosis, and prescribed accordingly. After following 
his treatment for some time, and finding himself no 
better, he visited a neighboring city, and consulted an- 



80 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

other oculist, who instantly detected tobacco to be the 
cause of his blindness, as if the obnoxious stench of the 
weed had led him at once to this conclusion. J. W. 
instantly " threw away tobacco for ever/' visited a rela- 
tive in the Highlands, where in a short time his vision 
gradually returned, became clear, and enabled him to 
return to his business quite cured. It is now six years 
since he recovered, and he now can read a small printed 
book without glasses. He says his health is much im- 
proved since he gave up the pernicious weed. 

98. This case is important, as it explains how tobacco 
affects us. If tobacco smoking produces such serious 
effects on the nerves of the eyes, so as to cause blindness, 
why may it not produce paralysis of any of the other 
nerves, as those of the arms, legs, and indeed of every 
other organ. (See page 34.) 

99. It would appear that the nerves of the mouth and 
nostrils are first affected — then the brain — thirdly, the 
nerves of the eyes — and lastly, the whole nervous system. 
At the same time, the poison, being mixed and swal- 
lowed with the saliva, must be absorbed by the lymphatics 
of the stomach and intestines, and be thus circulated 
with the blood, and again act on the nervous system like 
strychnine. 

100. I was consulted by a captain of dragoons, affected 
with amaurosis, consequent on smoking tobacco, for which 
he was compelled to sell his commission, after being 
several years in the army, and only forty years of age. 
I could not convince him that his smoking tobacco was 
the cause of his blindness, and I suppose that he con- 
tinues blind to this date. , v 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 81 

101. In a recent correspondence with Mr. Anton, lie 
thus states : " I am convinced that a soldier, who is an 
inveterate smoker, is incapable to level his musket with 
precision, and without shaking his hand, so as to take a 
steady aim at the object he is desirous to hit." . . . 
" Your remarks," says he, " bring back to my recollec- 
tion many instances of that nervous trepidation, which 
rendered many a brave man useless as a marksman or 
musqueteer." 

102. The British soldiers, says Mr. O'Flaherty, had 
no tobacco at the battles of Alma, Balaklava, or Inker- 
mann, while the Russians had too much, both of tobacco 
and raki • and that he never saw stronger men or more 
noble soldiers than the Russians. 

He also says that he has known men, who, previous 
to their using tobacco, were the finest marksmen, and 
could send a bullet through the target at 800 yards dis- 
tance; but who, after they had commenced to smoke 
and chew tobacco, became so nervous that they could 
scarcely send a bullet into a haystack at 100 yards dis- 
tance. In this statement, O'Flaherty is confirmed by a 
soldier of the Scots Fusilier Guards. 

103. Here I may remark, that surgeons, especially 
operating surgeons, who smoke tobacco, cannot have the 
same cool head and hand, as he who never uses the weed. 
The late Mr. Liston never smoked. Before performing 
any important operation, he took a gallop over the Pent- 
land Hills to brace his nerves. 

104. Dr. M'Cosh, once a professor in the Calcutta 
Medical College, who had much experience in the East 
Indies, having served in the Bengal Medical Staff in 

F 



82 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

four campaigns and nine general actions, and experienced 
all the vicissitudes of an Indian climate, from the snowy 
mountains of the Khyber to the tepid marshes of Burraah, 
makes the following valuable observations in his "Advice 
to Officers in India" : 

"Tobacco smoking," says he, "is a very common 
habit; so much so, that two-thirds of the European popu- 
lation indulge in it; nor is the vice contracted in India 
only. A large proportion of cadets acquire the habit in 
England, and are not a little proud of their accomplish- 
ment. Young men think it manly to blow as big a 
cloud as their commanding officer. Their breath not 
only smells of an old pipe, but every thing that comes 
out of their house — a book, a newspaper, or a letter — 
does the same; so that the perusal, by any one not sea- 
soned to such fumes, is sickening; and to ladies, dis- 
gusting. The very difficulty of learning to smoke, the 
headache, and nausea, and vertigo, with which that is 
acquired, are enough to show that the habit is most 
injurious ; only made endurable by long habit, and per- 
severed in from want of some more congenial occupation. 
Habitual smoking, too, often leads to habitual drinking ; 
the drain upon the system must be replenished, and 
brandy and water is the succedaneum. Some pretend to 
gainsay this, and maintain that they do not spit ; but this 
only shows the torpor of the salivary glands ; for, if they 
were in a healthy state, saliva would be as copious as 
when they were learning the habit. 

105. Some smoke from medicinal motives, and to 
produce a laxative effect, or from absurd notions that it 
neutralizes malaria; but these same persons would 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 83 

grumble loudly at being obliged to take a pill every 
evening to produce the same effect. If a general order 
were issued, rendering smoking compulsory, bow the 
fathers of youthful heroes would protest against so very 
expensive a habit being imposed upon their sons ; what 
an outcry there would be amongst the married ladies for 
having such an intolerable nuisance forced upon their 
domestic economy ! How the surgeons would be perse- 
cuted with applications for certificates, recommending 
exemption, from the rule, on the score of their consti- 
tutions being too delicate to admit of smoking being 
practised with impunity. Strange infatuation ! Great 
smokers blow away money enough during their career 
in India to purchase them a moderate annuity; they 
waste more good health than their pensions can redeem j 
and shorten the period of their lives several years by this 
filthy habit." 

106. The following are the sentiments of the great 
Camden : — 

Camden, in his Annals rer. Anglicar, page 415, thus 
expresses himself on the smoking of tobacco : " In con- 
sequence of this use of it, the bodies of Englishmen^ 
who are so highly delighted with this plant (tobacco), 
seem to have degenerated into the nature of the barba- 
rians, seeing that they are delighted with the same thing 
which the barbarians use." 

107. The following extract, from the leading article 
of the Lancet of April 4, 1857, contains a brief and 
conclusive summing up of the evidence adduced by the 
numerous correspondents of that journal on the tobacco 
controversy, as to the injurious effects of excessive 



84 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

smoking; and I have annexed, in a continued series, 
excerpts from the several papers which appeared in that 
journal, being convinced that the audi alteram partem 
is the only legitimate mode of dealing with the question : 
" It is almost unnecessary to make a separate inquiry 
into the pathological conditions which follow upon ex- 
cessive smoking. Abundant evidence has been adduced 
in the correspondence in our columns, of the gigantic 
evils which attend the use of tobacco. Let it be granted 
at once, that there is such a thing as moderate smoking, 
and let it be admitted that we cannot accuse tobacco of 
being guilty of the whole of Cullen's i Nosology/ it 
still remains that there is a long catalogue of frightful 
penalties attached to its abuse. 
" Let us briefly recapitulate — 

"1. To smoke early in the day is excess. 
"2. As people are generally constituted, to smoke 
more than one or two pipes of tobacco, or 
one or two cigars daily, is excess. 
" 3. Youthful indulgence in smoking is excess. 
" 4. There are physiological indications, which, oc- 
curring in any individual case, are criteria 
of excess. 
u We most earnestly desire to see the habit of smoking 
diminish, and we entreat the youth of this country to 
abandon it altogether. Let them lay our advice to 
heart. Let them give up a dubious pleasure for a cer- 
tain good. Ten years hence we shall receive their 
thanks/' 

108. The subjoined extract is taken from a second 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 85 

communication on the tobacco question, by Mr. Solly, in 
The Lancet of February 14th, 1857: 

" The more I think of the tobacco question the more 
it haunts me. I feel that I cannot do justice to its im- 
portance, but I am anxious to add something to my last 
communication. Every day the subject is forced upon 
my mind. I scarcely meet a friend or patient who does 
not bear his testimony to the mischief of which he has 
been the witness, in his own case or that of some friend, 
from tobacco. 

" The profession have no idea of the ignorance of the 
public regarding the nature of tobacco. Even intelli- 
gent, well-educated men, stare in astonishment, when 
you tell them that tobacco is one of the most powerful 
poisons we possess. Now, is this right? Has the 
medical profession done its duty? Ought we not, as a 
body, to have told the public that, of all our poisons, it 
is the most insidious, uncertain, and, in full doses, the 
most deadly. "Why should they not know at once how 
often it has proved fatal in the human subject, when 
injected into the rectum in strangulated hernia. I 
heard, only the other day, that a celebrated surgeon — 
rather an obstinate one — since dead, lost five cases in 
succession from the effect of tobacco injected into the 
bowels. 

"It seems almost trifling with the subject, and yet 
the extreme ignorance which prevails regarding this 
frightful pest, rendering even trifles weighty in the 
scale, induces me to remind all smokers, and those of 
our brethren who madly encourage it, that the first effect 
of a cigar on any one, demonstrates that tobacco can 



86 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

poison by its smoke, and through the lungs, just as cer- 
tainly as through the bowels. 

" It is true, that the all-perfect laws of Nature point 
out to careless man, that he is taking in a poison, and 
by the sickness, headache, and vomiting which follow, 
stop for the time the poisonous dose, and avert the 
fatal end. 

" Look at the pale face, imperfect development, and 
deficient muscular power of the inhabitants of unhealthy 
malarious districts. They live on, but with only half 
the proper attributes of life. So it is with the habitual 
smoker : his system is accustomed to the poison ; and so 
the opium-eater can take an ounce of laudanum for his 
morning's dram, and feel it not, when the eighth part 
of it would be fatal to the uninitiated. 

" What a blessing it would have been to mankind, if 
all men had shrunk from this plague of the brain, as did 
the first Napoleon. One inhalation was enough. In 
disgust he exclaimed, i Oh, the swine ! My stomach 
turns. It is a habit only fit to amuse sluggards/ 

"It is not, however, to be denied, that when the first 
poisonous effect has passed off, and the system begins to 
tolerate it, that tobacco acts as a slight stimulant to 
many organs. First to the brain, like wine and spirits 
in small quantities, or inflammation in its very earliest 
and very transitory stage, it excites to an unnatural 
degree the natural function of the part. I once knew a 
young clergyman, who could only write his sermons 
under the stimulus of tobacco, and there is no question 
that these discourses were brilliant, eloquent, and most 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 87 

interesting to listen to j but the end of that man is not 
yet come. 

" In the same way, tobacco is a stimulus to the gene- 
rative system \ but the stimulating effect is much earlier 
followed by its depressing action ; consequently it has 
long been known, when used immoderately, to extinguish 
the sexual appetite, and annihilate the reproductive fa- 
culty. It is a prolific source of spermatorrhoea. During 
one week lately, I was consulted by three young men 
suffering from seminal weakness, in all of whom I could 
trace this drain to the relaxing, enervating effect of 
smoking. Happy would it be for them if the abandon- 
ment of the vice would at once restore them to health ; 
but no ! the evil remains, though the cause is removed 
— I do not mean remains permanently, because all such 
cases are ultimately, though sometimes slowly, curable. 
These three cases are merely a few out of many I have 
seen of late years. 

" I have been asked to produce facts in proof of the 
deleterious effects of tobacco, and facts in abundance 
shall be forthcoming when I have had a record kept of 
its effects in my hospital cases ; but the facts which I 
have now by me being private cases, contain details the 
relation of which would involve a breach of confidence 
which nothing would justify. No man likes to be held 
up as a victim of tobacco smoke, though I could name 
many whose health has been decidedly injured by it. I 
have seen many cases of amaurosis, both in the incipient 
and advanced stage, caused by smoking. 

" I know a valued servant, in a family where I attend, 
whose memory was failing him, his face getting yellow, 



eo tobacco: its use and abuse. 

and his hand shaking ; so that those who did not know 
him attributed his condition to drinking. He abandoned 
smoking, and in two years was an altered man. 

"For above ten years I smoked occasionally; and I 
am well acquainted with all the soothing, calming, and, 
for the time, agreeable effect of a cigar, or even short 
pipe. I left it entirely off about nine years since. This 
I did, because I believed it impaired my nervous energy; 
and I have every reason to be satisfied with the change, 
Since that time my attention has been uninterruptedly 
directed to the question — Is tobacco smoking positively 
injurious? The conclusion, therefore, which I have 
briefly given to the world through your pages, has not 
been hastily or capriciously formed on a few isolated 
facts. For the last twenty years I have been the medi- 
cal examiner of various insurance offices — the Royal 
Exchange, the Victoria, the Crown, and New Equitable. 
The two former I still hold. In my examinations, I in- 
quire whether the examinees are in the habit of smoking; 
and I can now generally tell by the countenance whether 
they are or not habitual smokers. If I have any doubt 
on this point, an examination of the fauces decides it. 
The fauces of the smoker are always more or less injected 
and rough, presenting the appearance of a piece of dirty 
red velvet, instead of the pale, pinkish, lilac hue of a 
healthy throat. The tongue-, when smoking is not com- 
bined with drinking spirits, as is seldom the case in tho 
upper and middle classes, is usually furred and white, 
but not otherwise unhealthy.* This condition of the 

* The author has had a representation made, illustrating these 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 89 

fauces may be produced by, and always accompanies the 
intemperate use of, intoxicating liquors ; but then the 
tongue is unnaturally red ; the papillae at the tip and 
gustatory papillae prominent and angry. The condition 
of the fauces is well worthy the attention of the profes- 
sion; let them notice it, if possible, in almost every 
patient that comes before them, and they will soon be 
struck with the correct index these parts afford of the 
habits of their poss-essors. There is one source of fal- 
lacy which must, however, be guarded against. This is 
a temporary vascular injection, induced by the long- 
continued straining of some people, when requested to 
take a deep breath for the purpose of showing the fauces. 
Where, however, the examiner is aware of this fact, he 
will find no difficulty in distinguishing the temporary- 
blush from the permanent stain. I may here add, by- 
the-by, that I have occasionally detected habits of in- 
temperance, which the statement of the examinee, and 
the letters of his referees, gave no note of. In truth, 
there are many men who habitually drink more than is 
consistent with longevity, but who never get drunk. 
Such men invariably declare that they are quite tempe- 
rate. This condition of the tongue and fauces is not 
limited to the mouth ; it is not a mere local congestion ; 
it exists, more or less, in the stomach, and the rest of 
the alimentary canal; and hence, I believe, in the other- 
wise healthy subject, a cigar acts as a moderate purga- 
tive, but in typhus as a poison. Can, however, any 
medical man assert, that it is natural or healthy to take 
an aperient daily ? In the habitual smoker the heart is 



90 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

irritable, and the person nervous; the pulse frequently 
intermittent, and irregular in force and frequency. 

" In the course of niy practice I have met with many 
individuals who, like myself, have abandoned smoking, 
because they thought it did not agree with them. Many 
have done so at my suggestion. I have never found one 
who does not assert, most positively, that he has been in 
better health since, and that his intellectual activity has 
been increased. 

" With regard to the arguments that have been ad- 
duced in favor of its innocence, I will first advert to the 
Turks. The mental condition of the Turks, as a nation, 
would be one of the strongest arguments on my side, 
were the question not complicated with opium. The 
fact of their longevity as a race must be proved by sta- 
tistics, to establish the opinion that smoking does not 
shorten their lives ; but even then it would not prove 
that smoking is innocuous to Englishmen. My asser- 
tion, that it is especially injurious in England, applies 
to the young men of this country, about whom I am 
most anxious, because they all live up to fever-point. I 
believe that the injury inflicted by a pipe of tobacco in 
the mouth of a poor man, who lives below par rather 
than above it, cannot be appreciated ; but not so a cigar 
smoked by a man who lives high, and uses his brain 
much. It matters little whether the mere animal, let 
him be in the shape of a stock-broker's clerk or a coun- 
try voluptuary, smokes more or less ; but I am sure it is 
incompatible with great and long-continued intellectual 
activity, and that amount of high living which appears 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 91 

almost necessary to health in the imperfect atmosphere 
of great towns. 

u The different mode of living on the Continent and 
here, renders all arguments drawn from the effect of 
smoking on foreigners, in favor of the habit, scarcely 
applicable to the inhabitants of this island; though even 
in Holland, according to the statement of that interest- 
ing writer, Dr. Carlyon, this habit is fatal. It appears 
to me, that it is our duty to discourage any habit that is 
not conducive to health, and equally criminal to encou- 
rage a habit which is liable to become a master and a 
tyrant. 

" The gentry and aristocracy of this country must not 
suppose that because the habit of smoking does not lead 
in their case to drinking, that therefore it injures them 
not. Hundreds of gentlemen smoke without drinking 
more than they believe is conducive to health, and 
smoking does not in their persons lead to intemperance. 
But from this fact the habit is the more dangerously in- 
sidious. Its ill effects are less easily observed ; the habit 
advances in intensity without their perceiving any objec- 
tion to it ) but the penalty is paid nevertheless, and an 
untimely grave is often the result. 

" One of the best riders to hounds in England, who 
never smokes, told me that he required much less sleep 
than his friends, almost all of whom smoke ; and that 
they often remarked with astonishment how fresh he 
always was in the morning, notwithstanding late hours, 
champagne, &c. That gallant soldier, General Mark- 
ham, whose life was sacrificed to his hasty journey from 
India, never smoked himself, nor would he allow any of 



92 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

his personal staff to do so, so strong was his opinion of 
its injurious tendency to the soldier's character. 

"I "may be mistaken, but I believe that all our great- 
est men — I mean intellectually — statesmen, lawyers, 
warriors, physicians, and surgeons, have either not been 
smokers, or if smokers, that they have died prematurely. 

" My friend, Mr. Whitfield, the resident medical officer 
at St. Thomas's Hospital, speaks most strongly of the 
injury he has witnessed from habitual smoking, his ex- 
perience extending over above forty years, in a hospital 
containing near 500 beds, and relieving some thousands 
of out-patients every year. He has seen three cases of 
delirium tremens induced by tobacco smoke alone. In 
none of these cases had the patients indulged in drinking 
intoxicating liquors, so that there was no doubt of the 
single cause of the disease." 

109. The following extract is from a paper on the 
" Effects of Tobacco on Europeans in India," by James 
Kanald Martin, Esq., in the Lancet of 28th February, 
1857: — 

"My friend, Mr. Solly, having referred to what I 
have stated in the work on l The Influence of Tropical 
Climates on European Constitutions/ respecting the 
effects of the abuse of tobacco, and believing this sub- 
ject to be one seriously affecting the public health, I 
beg leave to state, more particularly and more in detail, 
some of the results of my observation on this question. 

" It is matter of constant observation amongst army 
surgeons, ever since the peace of 1815, that the habit 
of cigar-smoking, introduced into this country from 
Portugal, Spain, and France, by the officers of the British 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 93 

army, has produced a greater amount of pale, sallow com- 
plexions, amongst young officers more especially, than 
had ever before been observed as resulting from any 
other cause. Had the morbid complexion been all, the 
matter would have been of little importance ; but here 
it generally means loss of appetite, defective nutrition, 
anaemia, and disordered nervous and vascular functions, 
all in the same individual. My observations lead me 
altogether to the conclusions of Yan Praag, that the 
operation of tobacco is at first stimulant, and at last de- 
pressing, not only in the circulation and respiration, but 
also on the nervous system ; accelerated circulation, in- 
crease of respiratory movements, and excessive irritation 
of the muscular system, being the phenomena first ob- 
served. The concluding symptoms are those of general 
depression, both of animal and organic life, with occa- 
sional instances of moral and physical impotency, accom- 
panied by the most mournful results. I am here speaking 
of what I have witnessed. 

" The most ordinary results of excessive use of to- 
bacco are — the most severe forms of irritable dyspepsia, 
giddiness, disturbed action of the heart, nervous tre- 
mors, and cachexia, all amounting occasionally to palsy. 
Young gentlemen who are in the habit of putting i an 
enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains/ do 
not become aware of these facts until it sometimes be- 
comes too late. A highly scientific and distinguished 
captain of engineers of the Indian army told me — 'All 
the young fellows of my term who went out to India, 
having bad habits, are dead, excepting two/ And what 
has become of them? i They were cashiered!' Here 
18 



94 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

the question of tobacco was not immediately in contem- 
plation ; but I have no doubt whatever, from the results 
of my observations in India and at home, that of the 
habits which led to this sad end, the abuse of tobacco 
was, amongst these young officers, the most banefully 
influential. 

" I dispute the alleged benefits of even moderate to- 
bacco smoking as a preventive of damp or of malaria ; 
and seriously anomalous symptoms I have seen to arise, 
in the progress of malarious fevers, from the abuse of 
it — such symptoms as may lead to the most grave mis- 
takes in the treatment of fevers, if the medical officer 
be not careful to inquire into the habits of his patient. 
Of this also I have seen the most emphatic examples. 
Those who urge the prophylactic benefits of tobacco, 
carry the habit from the swamps of Burmah into the 
arid plains of Hindostan, in defiance of geographical 
differences. 

u I can state of my own observation, that the miseries, 
mental and bodily, which I have witnessed from the 
abuse of cigar-smoking, and chiefly in young men, far 
exceeded any thing detailed in the l Confessions of an 
Opium Eater ; ' and I feel assured that the abuse of to- 
bacco, however employed, may be classified amongst 
those habits which produce chronic poisoning." 

110. In the Lancet for 14th March, 1857, page 281, 
there is an appalling account of the death of a woman 
who had become paralytic, apparently from excessive 
smoking of tobacco, and whose death was occasioned by 
her clothes having taken fire from her pipe. 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 95 

111. In the Lancet for 28th February, 1857, Mr. Hig- 
ginbottom, of Nottingham, says : 

"After fifty years of most extensive and varied prac- 
tice in my profession, I have come to the decision, that 
smoking is a main cause of ruining our young men, 
pauperizing the working-men, and rendering compara- 
tively useless the best efforts of ministers of religion." 
The proverbial drunkenness of our countrymen can 
only be arrested by laying the axe at the root of its 
superinducing cause, the thirst-creating power of to- 
bacco. ' Penury and crime/ says a medical temperance 
reformer, { are brought on by drinking, to supply moist- 
ure to the system, after it has been drained by spitting 
away the flourishing saliva. Hence drunkenness in the 
masses." 

112. Extract from an article by J. Pidduck, M. D., in 
the Lancet of 14th February, 1856 : — 

"As physician to a dispensary in St. Giles's during 
sixteen years, I had extensive opportunities of observing 
the effects of tobacco upon the health of a very large 
number of habitual smokers. The extraordinary fact is 
this : that leeches were killed instantly by the blood of 
the smokers, so suddenly that they dropped off dead 
immediately they were applied ; and that fleas and bugs, 
whose bites on the children were as thick as measles, 
rarely if ever attacked the smoking parent. It may be 
said : i But why may not this poisonous effect upon 
leeches, fleas, and bugs, be owing to gin, and not to- 
bacco V The answer to this objection is, that the Arabs 
and Bedouins, who drink neither wine nor strong drink, 
are protected from the onslaught of the insects, which 



96 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

swarm in their tents, by poisoning their blood with to- 
bacco, whilst the wine and spirit-drinking Europeans 
are attacked without mercy. What is so fatal to insect 
life, cannot be otherwise than most formidable to the life 
of persons whose blood is thus poisoned. If the evil 
ended with the individual who, by the indulgence of a 
pernicious custom, injures his own health, and impairs 
his faculties of mind and body, he might be left to his 
enjoyments — his 'Fools 1 Paradise' — unmolested. This, 
however, is not the case : in no instance is the sin of the 
father more strikingly visited upon his children, than 
the sin of tobacco smoking. The enervation, the hypo- 
chondriasis, the hysteria, the insanity, the dwarfish de- 
formities, the consumption, the suffering lives and early 
deaths of the children of inveterate smokers, bear ample 
testimony to the feebleness and unsoundness of the con- 
stitution transmitted by this pernicious habit. 

" How is it, then, that the Eastern nations have not, 
ere this, become exterminated by a practice which is 
almost universal ? The reply is, that by early marriage, 
before the habit is fully formed, or its injurious effects 
decidedly developed, the evil to the offspring is pre- 
vented; but in this country, where smoking is com- 
menced early, and marriage is contracted late in life, 
the evil is entailed in full force upon the offspring. 
Adulterations of all kinds are bad enough, but the 
adulteration by a . narcotic — poisoning the life at its 
source, the breath; and, in its course, the blood — is 
worse than all. By these adulterations, the health of 
the community is injured; by this, a man injures his 
own health and that of his children. Ought not this 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 97 

consideration to restrain every wise and good man from 
contracting or continuing such a senseless and destruc- 
tive habit of self-indulgence ? For old men, smoking 
may be tolerated ; but for young men and boys, it can- 
not be too severely reprobated." 

113. The following extract is from the article, "Is 
Smoking Injurious?" in the Lancet of 31st January, 
1857, by Dr. Johnson : 

" What is the testimony of facts ? Why, for one in- 
veterate smoker who will bear testimony favorable to the 
practice, ninety-nine such, of the candid of these, are 
found to declare their belief that this practice is inju- 
rious ; and I scarcely ever yet met with one habitual 
smoker who did not, in his candid moments, regret his 
commencement of the habit. 

"A few weeks since, I was summoned to attend a 
gentleman in the country. On my arrival I found him 
complaining of headache, nausea, languor, loss of appe- 
tite and sleep, and inability to rise in the morning ; his 
expression was anxious, haggard, and nervous; his com- 
plexion sallow and jaundice-looking; his tongue highly 
furred, and teeth incrusted with a dirty greenish-yellow 
deposit; his breath, which was exceedingly offensive 
from the odor of tobacco, revealed to my mind the na- 
ture of the evil. On my inquiry, he informed me that 
for many years he had indulged rather freely in the use 
of tobacco, declaring, at the same time, that ever since 
his apprenticeship to smoking, the pernicious habit had 
gradually and insidiously crept upon him, till at length 
it became confirmed. I persuaded him to desist from 
its indulgence, and succeeded ; but he found the task a 



98 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

terrible one, so enslaving is the habit. After a short 
time, however, he succeeded in conquering the appetite. 
Many of the symptoms have entirely disappeared, and 
he is now considerably improved. Is not this case, in 
the experience of most medical men, the type of thou- 
sands more? 

" It is a certain fact, that devoted smokers are liable 
to both constitutional and local disorders of very serious 
characters. Among the former, we notice giddiness, 
sickness, vomiting, dyspepsia, diarrhoea, angina pectoris, 
diseases of the liver, pancreas, and heart, nervousness, 
amaurosis, paralysis, apoplexy, atrophy, deafness, and 
mania. Amongst the latter, ulceration of the lips (not 
unfrequently of a syphilitic character, from the morbid 
matter introduced into the healthy subject, by smoking 
cigars or pipes which have been used by diseased per- 
sons), ulceration of gums, cheeks, mucous membrane of 
the mouth, tonsils, throat, etc. 

" Most of these results I have selected from authors 
of some locus standi — amongst whom I may mention 
Drs. Prout, Bright, Lay cock, Eadcliffe and Ranking, 
Pereira, Orfila, Trousseau, Johnstone, Sir B. Brodie, 
and Professor Lizars. Dr. Taylor, in his valuable work 
on Poisons, says : ' That a poisonous substance like to- 
bacco, whether in powder, juice, or vapor, cannot be 
brought in contact with an absorbing surface like mucous 
membrane, without in many cases producing disorder of 
the system, which the consumer is probably quite ready 
to attribute to any other cause than that which would 
render it necessary for him to deprive himself of what 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 99 

he considers not merely as a luxury, but an article 
actually necessary to his existence/ — p. 787. 

" The quantity of this poisonous weed entered for 
1 home consumption ' in the eleven months ending No- 
vember, 1856, was 29,776,082 lbs. The deleterious 
effects which this enormous amount of tobacco produced 
upon its victims, both physically, mentally, and morally, 
admits of no possible calculation." 

114. Dr. Pugh, in the Lancet of 21st February, 1857, 
says: 

" I have read with interest the communications of Mr. 
Solly which you have recently published ; and having 
been favorably circumstanced, during nearly twenty 
years' practice in the Australian colonies, for observing 
the pathological conditions arising out of the habitual 
use of tobacco, I beg to add a few facts to those already 
before the profession. 

" The life of an Australian squatter, without the set- 
tled districts, is one of an exceedingly monotonous cha- 
racter. He passes into positions far removed from all 
intercourse with intelligent companions; he enjoys few 
of the ameliorating circumstances which give a charm 
to social life. His home is situated in the solitude of 
the vast plain in which his flocks are fed, and he is 
visited only by those who are in his employ. For the 
year together, no opportunity occurs for interchange of 
thought with educated minds. Thus circumstanced, it 
is not surprising that an occasional instance is presented 
of men becoming slaves to an agent by which they are 
enabled to pass in dreamy stupor a portion of the weary 
time of their voluntary banishment. Unfortunately, the 



100 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

occasional pipe of tobacco is soon merged into a life, 
where no moment is tolerable in which the narcotic 
vapor is withheld. His morning smoke is commenced 
while in his bed ; his day is passed in a cloud ; and the 
pipe accompanies him when retiring to rest, to be laid 
aside when overpowering sleep prevents its further use. 
The first visible effects of such a life are a disregard for 
cleanliness and personal appearance. The features be- 
come bloated, and the lips lose their healthy hue. The 
cheerful and active movement has given place to a heavy 
listlessness. The character of the man has undergone 
a change. When roused, he attends to business, but 
rapidly returns to a state of abstraction. Dyspeptic 
symptoms annoy him, and soon the heart becomes irri- 
table, and the pulse is irregular. Hypochondriasis in 
its worse forms is presented, accompanied at times with 
a suicidal tendency; and I have known individuals in 
this condition rush to the town, dreading the conse- 
quences of a longer continuance in their life of solitude. 
The brain and ganglionic system become involved, and 
I have seen softening, accompanied by paralysis. Amau- 
rosis is not an unfrequent indicator of the existing 
nervous prostration. When under treatment, whether 
from disease or accident, the inveterate tobacco-smoker 
quickly presents evidence of the constitutional opera- 
tions of the narcotic. Typhoid symptoms show them- 
selves at a very early stage, and smoking delirium is 
present, which require to be combated by active tonic 
remedies. 

"No alcoholic beverage reaches the distant station. 
Tea and tobacco are the luxuries of bush life; hence a 



V 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 101 

facility is afforded for connecting the physiological effects 
with their exciting cause — tobacco! 

"If such be the consequences of excessive and con- 
tinued doses of narcotine, Gan we suppose that no mis- 
chief will accrue to the children of this country who are 
to be daily seen recklessly enjoying the pipe or the cigar? 
I fear a healthy nutrition is incompatible with the pro- 
ceeding, and think, with Mr. Solly, that the future hap- 
piness of the people of England may be jeopardized by 
a practice, which intercourse with our continental neigh- 
bors has rendered so popular." 

115. Mr. McDonald, Surgeon to the G-arnkirk and 
Heathfield works, says : 

" Having paid some attention to the effects of tobacco- 
smoking on the system, I have noted down a few obser- 
vations made over a wide field. 

" Sailors and navvies smoke more than any other 
class. The sailor uses from 8 oz. to 16 oz. of tobacco 
per month; the navvy, 8 oz. or 10 oz.; but part of this 
is chewed. Bad taste in the mouth, with sometimes an 
angry, irritable point on the tongue, lips, or fauces, 
which prevents him from smoking for a few days, are 
the only bad results I have observed. It does not ap- 
pear to affect the nervous system of either of these 
classes. The miner uses above 8 oz, per month. Often 
breathing an impure air, the tone of his system is low- 
ered, and then tobacco exerts its baneful influence on 
him. He is subject to dyspeptic, bilious, and nervous 
attacks, while those who do not smoke are invariably the 
healthiest. 

" Now; let the sailor or navvy take to sedentary em- 



102 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

ployment, and in a short time tobacco-smoking begins to 
affect hini as it does the man of sedentary habits. His 
hand begins to shake, his mouth feels clammy and he 
has a bad taste in it; he loses to a great extent his fine 
gustatory sense; his appetite becomes capricious; he 
feels languid and indolent; his memory becomes con- 
fused ; he has cardiac disturbance ; and spermatorrhoea, 
with all its evil results, not unfrequently comes on from 
smoking. A strong constitution may resist it for a few 
years, but it ultimately gains the victory. It is gene- 
rally supposed, that those who labor in the open air are 
exempted from its bad effects. This is only the case in 
certain conditions. They must be well fed. On the 
laborer with low wages, it exerts its baneful influence — 
first, from its own effects ; secondly, from squandering a 
large portion of that which should go to nourish him, 
whereby he is still further debilitated. 

" I may mention a curious fact, not generally known, 
but which requires only to be tried to be proved, viz., 
that no smoker can think steadily or continuously on any 
subject while smoking. He cannot follow out a train 
of ideas — to do so he must lay aside his pipe. 

" On woman it takes a sad hold. She soon becomes 
lazy and indolent, of dirty habits, and makes bad recove- 
ries from her confinements ; her children at the breast 
are liable to erysipelatous and other skin diseases. 

"In Scotland, in addition to the effects of tobacco, 
may be added those of its adulterations, viz., copperas, 
salt of tartar, saltpetre, and sand. The salts cause the 
tobacco to feel intensely hot and acrid, irritating mostly 
all the mucous membranes. These adulterations are 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 103 

added to give color, and by retaining a large amount of 
water, to cheat both revenue and consumer. It gives 
rise to that form of caries of the teeth which com- 
mences by internal decay. The tooth being unduly 
stimulated by the oft-applied heat ; a bony deposit takes 
place on the fangs, the canals are partially or wholly 
obliterated, and the supply of nourishment being cut off, 
some day, while perhaps eating a piece of soft bread, 
the crown gives way, and the tooth rapidly crumbles 
down. Sand is used to a very great extent, finely sifted; 
it perhaps is harmless, but affords a good illustration 
of how openly adulteration can be carried on in a free 
country. 

" In conclusion, I may state, that the germs of pre- 
mature decay, which abuse of tobacco is spreading 
through the country, will ultimately, in my opinion, 
prove more overwhelming than even the serious abuse 
of intoxicating liquors." 

116. The following is an extract from a communica- 
tion in the Lancet, by Walter Tyrrell, M. E. C. S. 

" More especially would I direct attention to the de- 
pressing influence of tobacco on the sexual powers. I 
feel confident, that one of the most common, as well as 
one of the worst, of its effects, is that of weakening, and 
in extreme cases, of destroying the generative functions. 
I can illustrate this by a case which came under my 
notice recently, and one which I believe to be by no 
means rare. My attention has just been directed to 
the subject by Mr. Lizars' admirable paper, when a 
gentleman called to consult me, as he found himself 
impotent. He was a young man, in apparently good 



104 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

health, and his generative organs showed no signs of 
disease or decay. He stated that it was only during the 
last few months that he had found his desire for con- 
nection gradually decreasing, and that when he did 
attempt it, his efforts were altogether futile, or only con- 
summated after a long interval. On inquiry into the 
supposed cause, amongst other matters, I found he had 
latterly become a great smoker, sometimes smoking a 
dozen cigars a day. Without particularly directing his 
attention to that point, I ordered him to confine himself 
to one cigar a day, at the same time ordering him a 
i placebo/ At the end of a fortnight he called again, 
saying he was very much improved ; he had greater de- 
sires, and more power of satisfying them. I now told 
him he might resume his smoking, but continue the 
medicine, to which he attributed all the benefit, telling 
him that he need not call again unless he found him- 
self worse. In a few days he returned with exactly the 
same symptoms as at first. I was now convinced of the 
cause, and ordered him entirely, though gradually, to 
leave off the habit. He was at first unwilling to sub- 
mit ; and it was not until I had repeated my former ex- 
periment, with, if possible, more positive results, that 
he consented. He has, I am glad to say, perfectly car- 
ried out his good resolutions, and with a perfectly suc- 
cessful result. 

" This case, I think, satisfactorily proves that, in some 
persons at least, tobacco is not the harmless luxury many 
would make it; and I am sure this case has many paral- 
lels." 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 105 

117. Statistics of France ; from Lancet of 14th Feb- 
ruary, 1857. 

" From 1851 to 1856, France, according to the last 
census, has gained only 256,000 inhabitants In the 
same number of years, from 1841 to 1846, the increase 
was 1,200,000. The difference is enormous." — (See 
The Times, January 29, 1857.) 

118. The following extract is from an account by Mr. 
Erichsen, in the Lancet of 21st February, 1857, of a 
case of slow poisoning by snuff containing lead : 

"I was particularly struck with the appearance of 
the hands and ai*ms, which were lying powerless on the 
coverlid of the bed. There was marked i wrist-drop ' 
of both arms — the hands hanging flaccid and at right 
angles with the forearms, without the patient being able 
to extend or raise them in the smallest degree. There 
was, however, some slight power of extension left in the 
fingers, especially in those of the left hand. Though 
unable to extend the fingers, raise the hand, and scarcely 
having power to elevate the arm, Mr. A. B. could flex 
the fingers pretty firmly, so as to give a tolerably good 
grasp to whatever was put into his hand. The index 
finger of the right hand seemed to be the most affected, 
and was permanently flexed. 

" There was a very marked degree of wasting of the 
whole mass of the extensor muscles of the forearm, so 
that a longitudinal hollow corresponding to the interos- 
seous space was perceptible down the whole length of 
the forearm, and a very deep and marked depression in 
the interspace between the first and second metacarpal 



106 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

bones. The hands were quite powerless, and the patient 
was unable to render himself the slightest assistance. 

"The tongue was pale and flabby; and, on exami- 
ning the gums, I found a deep blue-black or leaden- 
colored line around the teeth, more marked about the 
molars. 

"Digestion was much impaired. Appetite capricious, 
with much flatulence, and occasional attacks of consti- 
pation, with colicky pains. 

" On examining Mr. A. B., I was at once struck by 
the very marked ' wrist-drop/ more complete than I had 
ever seen before ; the limitation of the paralysis to the 
extensors, which were greatly wasted ; the existence of 
a blue line around the teeth ; and the occurrence of oc- 
casional attacks of constipation and colic, together with 
flying pains in the fleshy parts of the body, with absence 
of all articular inflammation. These symptoms led me 
to the conclusion, that Mr. A. B. was suffering from 
saturnine paralysis, and that he had been slowly poi- 
soned by lead. 

"In the course of my inquiries, however, I found 
that he took snuff in considerable quantities. I accord- 
ingly emptied his box of its contents, and took them up 
to town with me, with a view to further examination. 
The snuff was analyzed by Professor Williamson, who 
immediately detected in it a considerable quantity of 
lead; and another supply having been procured from 
the shop at which Mr. A. B. was in the habit of pur- 
chasing it, was subjected to analysis by Dr. G-arrod, who 
readily detected large quantities of the metal in it." 

119. When snuff is packed "in boxes lined with very 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 107 

tliiu load, which are much used by the Paris retailers, a 
chemical action takes place, the result of which is to 
charge the snuff with subacetate of lead. Mayer of 
Berlin traces several deaths and cases of ' saturnine 
paralysis' to the patients having taken snuff from 
packets, the inner envelope of which was thin sheet- 
lead, in constant contact with the powdered weed." — 
From the Atlicnseum, 2d October, 1858. 

120. Dr. Bucknill, of the Devon County Asylum, in 
his communication to the Lancet, 28th February, 1857, 
argues that " the preponderance of lunatics of the fe- 
male sex, is conclusive evidence against the theory that 
tobacco either causes or predisposes to mental disease." 
But the accuracy of Dr. Buckniirs statistical argument 
is liable to many objections. It may be differently ex- 
plained; and I have tables furnished to me on the sub- 
ject, which I could adduce, if necessary, establishing 
an opposite conclusion. At all events, Dr. Bucknill 
seems to have overlooked the many powerfully exciting 
and predisposing causes rendering females liable to 
attacks of insanity. 

121. A scientific physician, on reading Dr. Buckniirs 
communication in the Lancet, observed that "Dr. Buck- 
nill blows hot and cold on the tobacco blast \ " and on 
Dr. Pretty's paper in the same number of the Lancet, 
that " Dr. Pretty adduces pretty proofs of contradiction 
and absurd reasoning." 

122. In the Asylum Journal of Mental Science for 
October, 1857, vol. iv. No. 23, edited by Dr. Bucknill, 
there is a statistical account or memorial drawn up by 
a Miss Dix, of the Hospitals for the Insane in the 



108 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

United States, from which I extract the following : " In 
the Massachusetts State Hospital, in 1843, there were 
eight cases of insanity produced by the abuse of to- 
bacco." 

123. Dr. Kirkbride, in his report of the Pennsylvania 
Hospital for the Insane for 1849, states that " two cases 
in men and five in women were caused by the use of 
opium, and four in men by the use of tobacco." " The 
use of tobacco," continues he, "has, in many indivi- 
duals, a most striking effect on the nervous system ; and 
its general use in the community is productive of more 
serious effects than is commonly supposed." 

124. The following interesting case has been sent me 
by a medical friend, the ordinary attendant on the pa- 
tient. A gentleman about thirty-five years of age, long 
addicted to drinking, smoking, and chewing, became 
quite fatuous, and subject to fits closely resembling epi- 
lepsy. He was removed to a lunatic asylum, where the 
ardent spirits were first given up ; but no change for the 
better for six months. The smoking tobacco was then 
reduced, when some little improvement took place ; and 
when both the smoking and chewing tobacco were re- 
duced, a great amendment followed ; and when totally 
given up, the fits ceased, and he became perfectly sane. 
It is upwards of two years since he became rational and 
free from the fits ; and when interrogated, what was the 
cause of his mental alienation and fits ? he unhesitatingly 
ascribes them to the use of tobacco. 

125. The next case corroborates the effects of tobacco 
on the nervous system. A strong, brawny carter, thirty 
years of age, states that five years ago he was struck 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 109 

speechless, and paralytic of his left side, which he 
ascribed to smoking tobacco, generally half-an-ounce 
daily, since he was a boy. He lay powerless for some 
weeks among his friends, being unable to earn his live- 
lihood. In twelve months, he so far recovered as to lead 
a horse, and has since slowly recovered. Still, he cannot 
grasp with his left as with his right hand. He " threw 
away tobacco forever," from the day of his paralytic attack. 
October 9th, 1858. 

126. Dr. Carlyon, in his " Early Years and Late Re- 
flections," writes as follows : 

" What can be more deleterious than tobacco. Many 
an honest Deutscher have I seen smoking himself into 
the grave ! 

1 Ranch — Rauch. — immer Rauch ! ' 

the countenance pale and haggard; the frame emaciated; 
the propensity to smoke irresistible ! 

'A pipe ! a pipe ! My heart's blood for a pipe !' 

Neither is there need of much physiological acuteness 
to account for the bad effects of this pernicious habit on 
the health. Tobacco is a very powerful narcotic poison. 
If the saliva, the secretion of which it provokes, be 
impregnated with its essential oil, and so swallowed, the 
deleterious influence is communicated directly with the 
stomach; or if, as more frequently happens, it is ejected, 
then the blandest fluid of the human frame — that 
which, as a solvent and diluent, performs an office in 
digestion secondary only to the gastric juice itself — is 
lost. Even snuff, my old friend Abernethy used to 
say, fuddles the nose; but the fumes of tobacco pos- 
19 



110 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

sess a power of stupefying all the senses and all the 
faculties, by slow but enduring intoxication, into dull 
obliviousness. 

"I recollect reading the address of a professor, in 
some American University, to his pupils, on the bad 
effects of tobacco. This address, sensible and spirited, 
seemed to come from the professor's very heart. He 
deprecated, in the most forcible manner, the practice 
of smoking, which had been recently taken up, and 
said, i That prior to the period when pipes were to be 
seen in the mouth of every student, the youth of the 
University were as different in their looks from the indi- 
viduals with whom he was then surrounded, as health 
from disease/ " 

He gives the following translation of an epigram, by 
Petrus Scriverinus, on a tobacco-pipe : 

" Old men and young, beware ! beware ! 
A pipe of tobacco is Satan's snare ; 
Not surer the net for birds is spread, 
By the pipe's sweet note to capture led, 
Than the whiffs which the lovers of smoking take, 
Are sure to lead to the Stygian lake." 

127. Dr. Taylor, who, as an accurate analyst, and an 
enlightened medical jurist, has deservedly earned a name 
of the highest authority in all medico-legal questions, in 
his work on Poisons, says : 

"A poisonous substance like tobacco, whether in 
powder, juice, or vapor, cannot be brought in contact 
with an absorbing surface, like mucous membrane, with- 
out in many cases producing disorder of the system, 
which the consumer is probably quite ready to attribute 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. Ill 

to any other cause than that which would render it neces- 
sary for him to deprive himself of what he considers, 
not merely a luxury, but an article actually necessary to 
his existence." 

128. In the Half-yearly Abstract of the Medical Sci- 
ences, vol. i., p. 73, there is an interesting collection of 
cases of disease produced by tobacco. They show the 
terrible effect of the plant on the digestive and nervous 
systems. The first is that of a young American lawyer, 
who " used (the weed) freely, by smoking, chewing, and 
snuffing." He labored under " acidity, cardialgia, gas- 
trodynia, palpitation of the heart, giddiness, vertigo, and 
fulness of the head, with the most profound gloom; 
keenly alive to every feeling, he was in constant fear of 
death, yet tempted to commit suicide to escape from a 
life more intolerable than death itself. He had a firm 
conviction in his mind, that he should die from apo- 
plexy." He had frequent shocks in the epigastrium, 
both during the day and during the night. When he 
threw away tobacco for ever, all his dreadful feelings 
u vanished as if by magic." He ultimately became " an 
able and talented member of the bar, in the possession 
of good health, spirits, and prosperity." 

129. His sister, thirty-nine years of age, a married 
lady, mother of two children, had smoked and snuffed 
tobacco for fifteen years — for eight years had those 
peculiar shocks at the epigastrium, resembling those 
produced by electricity, with a sinking sensation at the 
pit of the stomach, cardialgia, acid eructations, a sense 
of rushing of blood to the head, palpitations, sleepless- 
ness, and startings when first falling into slumber. These 



112 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

increased, and then tenderness of the spine along its 
whole length, rigidity of the limbs, costiveness, derange- 
ment of the catainenia, &c. Seeing the good effect of 
abandoning the use of tobacco in her brother, she made 
the same experiment in part herself, and with the same 
marked relief from many of the symptoms — she ulti- 
mately recovered a comfortable state of health. She has 
frequently ventured upon a moderate use of tobacco, but 
after using it a while, she experiences her old feelings, 
and then quickly abandons it. 

130. Dr. Lay cock, Professor of the Practice of Physic 
in the University of Edinburgh, a physician not less dis- 
tinguished for great erudition than for his practical ex- 
perience, and skill, and tact, in the detection and treat- 
ment of disease, published, in the Medical Gazette for 
October 2d, 1846, a paper, so corroborative of my views 
regarding tobacco, as to render an apology for publishing 
the following extract from it wholly unnecessary. He 
remarks : — 

" It is only by personal observations made during the 
. last two or three years, that I have become fully aware 
of the great changes induced in the system by the abuse 
of tobacco, and of the varied and obscure form of dis- 
ease to which especially excessive smoking gives origin ; 
and I now propose to state some of the results at which 
I have arrived. 

" The consequences of smoking tobacco are manifested 
in the buccal and pharyngeal mucous membrane and 
their diverticula; on the stomach, the lungs, and the 
heart, and on the brain and nervous system. With 
regard to these consequences ; it may be generally stated 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 113 

here, that they vary according to the quantity of to- 
bacco smoked, and according to the pathological condi- 
tions and peculiarities of the individual himself. Some 
persons will smoke a very large quantity before certain 
symptoms arise, while others experience these with a 
very small quantity. The amount consumed by habitual 
smokers varies from half an ounce to twelve ounces per 
week. The usual quantity is from two to three ounces. 
Inveterate cigar smokers will consume from four to five 
dozen per week of the lighter kind of cigars, as Manil- 
las, Bengal cheroots, etc. 

" The first and simplest morbid result of excessive 
smoking, is an inflammatory condition of the mucous 
membrane of the lip and tongue, and this sometimes 
ends in a separation of the epithelium. Then the ton- 
sils and pharynx suffer, the mucous membrane becoming 
dry and congested. If the throat be examined, it will 
be observed to be slightly swollen, with congested veins 
meandering over the surface, and here and there a streak 
of mucus. The inflammatory action also extends up- 
wards into the posterior nares, and the smoker feels from 
time to time a discharge of mucus from the upper part 
of the pharynx, in consequence of the secretion from 
the mucous membrane of the nares collecting within 
them. Sometimes the anterior nares suffer, but in this 
case the irritation is not marked by increased secretion 
so much as by tickling and itching within them. The 
irritation will also extend to the conjunctiva (and I am 
inclined to think from the nares, and not by the direct 
application of smoke to the eye), and the results are, 
heat, slight redness, lachrymation, and a peculiar spas- 

H 



114 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

raodic action of the orbicularis muscle of the eye, expe- 
rienced, together with intolerance of light, on awaking 
from sleep in the morning. 

u I think the frontal sinuses do not escape ; for I find 
that one of the symptoms, very constantly experienced 
after excessive smoking, is a heavy, dull ache, precisely 
in the region of these sinuses. But descending along 
the alimentary canal, we come to the stomach, and here 
we find the results to be, in extreme cases, the symptoms 
of gastritis. There is pain and tenderness on pressure 
of the epigastrium, anorexia, nausea on taking food, 
and a constant sensation of sickliness, and desire to 
expectorate. 

" The action of the heart and lungs is impaired by 
the influence of the narcotic on the nervous system, but 
a morbid state of the larynx, trachea, and lungs, results 
from the direct action of the smoke. The voice is ob- 
served to be rendered hoarser, and with a deeper tone; 
sometimes a short cough results ; and in one case that 
came under my notice, ulceration of the cartilages of 
the larynx was, I felt quite certain, a consequence of 
excessive use of tobacco. This individual had originally 
contracted the habit of smoking when a sailor, and it 
had become so inveterate, that he literally was never 
without a pipe in his mouth except when eating or 
sleeping. If he awoke in the night he lighted his pipe ; 
the moment he finished a meal he did the same. It is 
only in extreme cases like this that the inference can be 
fairly made as to the morbid results of the habit, because 
there are so many other causes of disease to be estimated 
at the same time. This particular instance has, how- 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 115 

ever, during my experience, been corroborated by others 
of a like kind ; and I have come to the conclusion that 
inflammation and ulceration of the larynx in men are 
almost exclusively peculiar to the slaves of excessive 
tobacco smoking. 

"Haemoptoe is another morbid condition distinctly 
traceable to this habit. The patient experiences a slight 
tickling low down in the pharynx or trachea, and hawks 
up rather than coughs up a dark grumous-looking blood. 
I have not been able to ascertain whence this comes. I 
have known it to flow out of the patient's mouth during 
the night, or to be effused shortly after lying down. It 
is a symptom worthy especial notice, however, because 
it gives great alarm, and may be readily mistaken for 
pulmonary haemoptysis, or an expectoration of blood. 

" The action of tobacco smoking on the heart, so far 
as I have observed, is depressing. The individual who, 
from some peculiarity of constitution, feels it in this 
organ rather than elsewhere, usually complains of a pe- 
culiar uneasy sensation about the left nipple — a distress- 
ing feeling — not amounting to faintness, but allied to it. 
In such an example no morbid sound can be detected, 
but the action of the heart is observed to be feeble, and 
slightly irregular in rhythm ; yet not always so in the 
same person. An uneasy feeling is also experienced in 
or beneath the pectoral muscles ; but oftener, I think, 
on the right side than on the left. 

" On the brain the action of tobacco smoking is seda- 
tive. It appears to diminish the rapidity of cerebral 
action, and check the flow of ideas through the mind. 
This, I think, is a certain result; and it is in consequence 



116 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

of this action, that smoking is so habitual with studious 
men, or men of contemplative minds. The phrases, ' a 
quiet pipe/ or i a comfortable cigar/ are significant of 
this sedative action. 

" There are a few facts which I would now state gene- 
rally, and which appear as secondary results of smoking. 
Constipation and hemorrhoids are often experienced by 
inveterate smokers. Acne of the face I have observed 
to be excited and kept up by the habit, and to disappear 
with the discontinuance of the latter. Blackness of the 
teeth and gum-boils are not uncommon results. There 
is also a sallow paleness of the complexion, an irreso- 
luteness of disposition, a want of life and energy, to be 
observed occasionally in inveterate smokers, who are 
content with smoking ; that is to say, who do not drink. 
I have suspected also that it has induced pulmonary 
phthisis. 

" The nervous system, as I have said, has peculiarly 
suffered ; and thence have arisen obtuseness in the func- 
tions of the several senses, irritability, indecision, and 
loss of courage, or of determination of action, weakness 
of the muscles of voluntary motion, and depravity of 
the secretions. Particularly have I observed the buccal 
membrane (in smokers) to become vascular, swollen, irri- 
table, and prone to haemorrhage. I have never observed 
an exception to the fact, that in smokers the voice has 
deepened in tone (I suppose from relaxation), or become 
hoarse or oppressed through excessive mucous secretion. 
Many an irritable nervous cough, without increased se- 
cretion from the tracheo-bronchial membrane, and many 
a cough dependent upon increased secretion, have I 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 117 

known to follow the frequent use of tobacco in smoking. 
I believe it to be a great antagonist of the functions of 
the nervous system, especially in its relations to the 
organs of sense, of reproduction, and of digestion. I 
think I have known it to produce perfect atony, with all 
its train of consequences. I have known many instances 
in which I was unable to prove that the ordinary use 
of tobacco did any harm ; I have known many more in 
which I could prove that it did do harm ; and I have 
not known any good from it that might not have been 
obtained from less objectionable means. 

"It will be seen that Dr. Wright corroborates my ob- 
servations in several particulars; and although I am not 
at all desirous that this communication should be consi- 
dered as a ( counter-blaste * to tobacco, I think the inve- 
terate habit of smoking, snuffing, or chewing that drug, 
is worthy the special notice of physicians and practi- 
tioners in medicine in general, as a very frequent but 
unconsidered and un though t-of cause of disease. I am 
quite certain, indeed, that if the practitioner habitually 
direct his attention to the subject, he will find that many 
obstinate and difficult cases may be elucidated, by apply- 
ing and extending the views detailed as well by Dr. 
Wright as myself. 

"Gastric disorders, coughs, and inflammatory affec- 
tions of the larynx and the pharynx, haemoptoe, diseases 
of the heart, and lowness of sprits, are the principal dis- 
eases in which the pathological results of the habit are 
to be looked for. The color of the teeth, a pearly blue- 
ness of the lips, a slight trembling of the hands, and a 
quiet, passive expression of countenance, are the most 



118 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

usual marks of the habit itself, and when present in any 
obstinate or anomalous disease, whether of the respira- 
tory, circulating, alimentary, or nervous system, would 
warrant a special inquiry as to the habits of the patient 
in the use of tobacco. In all cases, the quantity of snuff 
used, or tobacco smoked, per diem or per week, should 
be ascertained, as patients are apt to say they only smoke 
a little ; meaning, if pressed, that they smoke from half 
an ounce to an ounce of tobacco per diem — and the same 
with snuff/ ' 

131. The following paper, published by the British 
Anti-Tobacco Society, was written by a physician of high 
standing and extensive practice in London : — 

" The habit of smoking tobacco has given rise to the 
following ill effects, which have come under my obser- 
vation in numerous instances, and that of all the medical 
men with whom I am acquainted. I shall state the 
bad effects of this poison categorically, premising that 
chewing tobacco is the most injurious, smoking not much 
less so, and snuffing least, although also most decidedly 
injurious. As smoking holds a middle position of these 
three injurious habits, or vices, especially when adopted 
by the young, I shall therefore make it represent the 
others. 

" 1. Smoking weakens the digestive and assimilating 
functions, impairs the due elaboration of the chyle and 
of the blood, and prevents a healthy nutrition of the 
several structures of the body. Hence result, especially 
in young persons, an arrest of the growth of the body; 
low stature ; a pallid and sallow hue of the surface ; an 
insufficient and an unhealthy supply of blood; weak 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 119 

bodily powers ; and, in many instances, complete emas- 
culation, or inability of procreation. In persons more 
advanced in life, these effects, although longer in 
making their appearance, supervene at last, and with a 
celerity in proportion to the extent to which this vile 
habit is carried. 

"2. Smoking generates thirst and vital depression; 
and to remove these, the use of stimulating liquors is 
resorted to, and often carried to a most injurious extent. 
Thus two of the most debasing habits and vices to which 
human nature can be degraded, are indulged in to the 
injury of the individual thus addicted, to the shortening 
of his life, and to the injury and ruin of his offspring, 
if, indeed, he still retain his procreative powers — a very 
doubtful result — and the more doubtful when both vices 
are united in one person. 

"3. Smoking tobacco weakens the nervous powers; 
favors a dreamy, imaginative, and imbecile state of ex- 
istence; produces indolence and incapability of manly 
or continued exertion ; and sinks its votary into a state 
of careless or maudlin inactivity and selfish enjoyment 
of his vice. He ultimately becomes partially, but gene- 
rally paralyzed in mind and body — he is subject to 
tremors and numerous nervous ailments, and has re- 
course to stimulants for their relief. These his vices 
cannot abate, however indulged in, and he ultimately 
dies a drivelling idiot, an imbecile paralytic, or a suf- 
ferer from internal organic disease, at an age many years 
short of the average duration of life. These results are 
not always prevented by relinquishing the habit, after a 
long continuance or a very early adoption of it. These 



120 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

injurious effects often do not appear until very late in 
life. 

" 4. The tobacco smoker, especially if lie commences 
the habit early in life, and carries it to excess, loses his 
procreative powers. If he marry he deceives his wife, 
and disposes her to infidelity, and exposes himself to 
ignominy and scorn. If, however, he should have off- 
spring, they generally either are cut off in infancy, or 
never reach the period of puberty. His wife is often 
incapable of having a living child, or she suffers re- 
peated miscarriages, owing to the impotence of her hus- 
band. If he have children, they are generally stunted 
in growth or deformed in shape : are incapable of strug- 
gling through the diseases incidental to children, and 
die prematurely. And thus the vices of the parent are 
visited upon the children, even before they reach the 
second or third generation. I have constantly observed, 
that the children of habitual smokers are, with very few 
exceptions, imperfectly developed in form and size, very 
ill or plain-looking, and delicate in constitution. These 
imperfections are most manifest in the female offspring, 
for the procreative inability being chiefly in the hus- 
band, and less in the wife, unless from disgust at his 
habits, and the female generally deriving the chief char- 
acteristics of form, feature, and constitution, from the 
male parent, the female child is more or less the victim 
of his vices and debased habits. If, therefore, ladies 
sufficiently value their own happiness, and the health 
and happiness of their families, or desire what all desire 
"who love their lords," they ought not to marry 
smokers; nor should they trust the promises of reforma- 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 121 

tion which he may make, as they are very seldom kept. 
Persons who feel that smoking is injurious to them in 
any way whatever, or who are desirous of having in- 
structions to enable them to relinquish the habit, should 
have recourse to the best medical advice to enable them 
to recover from existing injurious effects, and to pre- 
vent the accession of others which may supervene at 
some future period, even although the habit has been 
relinquished." 

132. Professor Siebert, of Jena, in his a Treatise on 
Diseases of the Belly," 1855, gives the following striking 
case : — 

"Advocate T , in B , a robust, muscular, and 

athletic man, was under an affection of the spine from 
18-10 to 1845. He had peculiar sensations in differ- 
ent parts of the spinal cord, which, according to the 
changing central seat, produced radiating effects through- 
out the system. When this central point mounted up 
to about the seventh vertebra of the neck, he expe- 
rienced a numbness in the forearms and hands, with a 
sense of pressure in the breast, and a short, broken 
cough. If the pain was in the upper part of the spine, 
then there were other eccentric symptoms, such as pal- 
pitation of the heart. If lower down in the spine, then 
pain in the stomach, want of appetite, and vomiting. 
These gastric symptoms disappeared when the pain 
went down towards the cauda equina, and then there 
was disturbance in the sacral regions, cramp in the 
sphincter ani, nightly pollutions, sickly appearance, and 
hypochondriacal voice. When the entire spine was 
affected, there were disturbances in the lower extremi- 



122 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

ties; not properly palsy, but devious movements, and 
difficulty in standing steadily or moving directly, so that 
he could not easily get over a stone — an effort causing 
him anxiety; and he was obliged often to hold by the 
wall through giddiness. Sometimes, when the pain 
went into the left hemisphere of the brain, the patient 
saw objects double. Various remedies were tried, pre- 
parations of iron, etc., but without effect. The patient 
was a smoker; and Professor Siebert discovered that he 
was uniformly worse after smoking cigars. With much 
difficulty the doctor got him to abstain from this prac- 
tice for a short time, as a trial ; and the consequence 
was a relief from the symptoms of which he had so long 
complained. He got gradually better, and ultimately 
regained his health. Subsequently, the professor met 
his patient in the inn called the Three Crowns-, in 

B ; when, in the midst of their enjoyment and 

conversation, the latter, with somewhat of a pitiful look, 
inquired of his doctor if he might once again enjoy the 
luxury of a cigar. The doctor forbade ; but the advo- 
cate insisted, and took his own way. After the second 
cigar, he became pale, speechless, and hollow-eyed, left 
his seat and went out. The doctor followed him, and 
heard him confess that he felt come upon him the whole 
symptoms of his former disease. He was again treated 
with medicine ; and, having recourse to no more cigars, 
he was again restored to health — a clear proof, as the 
professor says, that the tobacco was the cause of his 
ailment." 

133. I was consulted lately by the father of a young 
barrister, who was ruining his prospects by smoking to- 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 123 

bacco. The lather writes that his son is smoking to- 
bacco night and day, converting day into night, and 
having no appetite : as for his legal studies, they have 
fled for ever. 

134. Mr. Turton, in an interesting communication on 
the evil effects of tobacco smoking, as read before the 
Eoyal Medical Society, on 20th February, 1857, says : 

" I will adduce another instance of the evil effects 
of excessive smoking on the nervous system, as affecting 
the procreative powers — I allude to the case of an emi- 
nent author in the literary world, of the highest graphic 
historical writing, who from his earliest manhood has 
daily handled the quill, and between whose lips cigar 
has followed cigar in endless succession. He married 
when young ; and although not yet sixty years of age, 
and of rather abstemious habits, it is well known that, 
for upwards of the last twenty years — - such have been 
the effects of mental excitement from intense study, and 
of cerebral affection and influence on the sensorial nerves 
from excessive and persistent tobacco smoking — all mari- 
tal connection between his wife and him has been sus- 
pended ; that the poor woman might have been, during 
that period, as well banished or divorced, she has been 
so wholly deprived of her lawful pleasures." 

" Professor Millar," says Mr. Turton, " mentioned on 
Wednesday, 18th February, 1857, to the gentlemen of 
his class, an interesting case of a gentleman about thirty- 
five years of age, who is suffering from paraplegia, 
caused by tobacco smoking. TThen this gentleman dis- 
continued smoking for a few days, a marked improve- 
ment of the symptoms supervened; but the moment he 



124 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

resumes his evil habit, the attack comes on as severe as 
ever." 

Will he be able to do so always ? Will not organic 
disease ultimately follow such attacks of functional dis- 
order ? 

135. I am informed by a gentleman, whose name I 
am not at liberty to mention, that a popular writer of 
the present day married a lady, and that immediately 
after his marriage he proposed separate beds, which was 
agreed to. But on the young bride telling her situation 
to her mother, the latter investigated the condition of 
the two partners, and learned that the husband was im- 
potent; he, in short, had long been an inveterate smoker. 
A separation and divorce were immediately obtained, 
and the lady was married to Mr. J. M. After the ordi- 
nary time she became a mother. 

136. Extracts from Dr. Budgett's instructive paper, 
on " The Tobacco Question, Morally, Socially, and Phy- 
sically Considered :" 1857. Dr. Budgett remarks : " Two 
hundred and sixty years ago, tobacco smoking was de- 
scribed as 'a branch of the sin of drunkenness ; 9 but 
during the last ten or fifteen years, the consumption of 
the weed has so increased, especially amongst young 
people, that we cannot even yet comprehend its influ- 
ence or result. 

" Still, the habits and manners of a country stamp its 
identity; and if a New Zealander, or any manly repre- 
sentative of any of our many conquered countries, which 
we call colonies, could place himself in London, Man- 
chester, or any of our large cities, and ask to be shown 
the youth of our present time, the fathers of the next 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 125 

generation, he would look in vain for the strength of 
limb, the Saxon energy, the mens sana in corpore sano 
which has carried us successfully in every land. 

" If some old warrior read this, perchance he may 
smile with contempt; but, before he does so, I would 
recommend him to take his stand at nine in the morn- 
ing in any thoroughfare leading to London ; scan care- 
fully the thin, pale faces on every omnibus ; measure in 
his mind's eye the narrow shoulders, the shuffling walk 
of the great majority of pedestrians; and then let him 
tell me if he can recognize any of the manly elements 
which were, in his early day, the pride and glory of his 
country, No ! Tobacco meets us at every corner : it 
smokes on every omnibus, like the reeking of a dung- 
hill; puppies, in the guise of officers and disguise of 
gentlemen, puff their impertinence into ladies' faces, 
who may be unprotected in the streets ; tailors' clerks 
and shopboys, taking advantage (query!) of the early 
closing movement, light their cigars as they draw on 
their gloves for an evening's ramble; and little boys, 
from the costermonger to the crossing-sweeper, form 
smoking-clubs of from three to twelve, passing their 
one pipe from mouth to mouth, in the secluded nooks 
of every alley, from the railway arch to the mythical 
arcana of the Adelphi. It is here that vice grows strong 
in company, and here the little boy receives his first 
practical instruction in larceny from his more advanced 
confederates ; around the pipe, young pickpockets hold 
their parliament. 

That this is so, no one can deny. It is a grave and 
20 



126 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

important subject for any legislature to consider, which 
looks beyond the accepted rule of expediency. 

" The medical profession in France bear similar testi- 
mony; for the < Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales' — 
a work of which it would be high treason in Paris to 
doubt the authenticity — after detailing at length the 
effects of tobacco amongst the workmen employed in the 
government factories (for in France it is a monopoly of 
the State), goes on to say : " The abuse of tobacco is the 
same as of all other pleasures of excitement, whether 
excesses of various kinds, strong liquors, and so forth 
(comme de celui de toutes les jouissances par irritation, 
comme de la masturhation, de Vabus des femmes, des 
liqueurs fortes, &c), and that it is astonishing that more 
numerous evils are not the result/ Again: 'Parents 
cannot too much oppose the fearful custom of using to- 
bacco; often they allow it to begin with a culpable 
facility, and they do not appear to foresee all the evils to 
which they deliver the youth whom they permit to con- 
tract this baneful habit; often thoughtlessly recommended 
for some trifling ailment, the use of it is continued for 
the remainder of his days/ 

" The Queen's Tobacco Pipe. — We have seen pipes 
of all sorts and sizes in our time. In Germany, where 
the finest cnaster is but twenty pence a pound, and ex- 
cellent leaf tobacco only five pence, we have seen pipes 
that resembled actual furnaces, compared with the 
general race of pipes, and have known a man smoke out 
half a pound of cnaster, and drink a gallon of beer at a 
sitting. But this is perfectly pigmy work when com- 
pared with the royal pipe and consumptive tobacco 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 127 

power of Victoria of England. The Queen's pipe is, 
beyond all controversy — for we have seen it — equal to 
any other thousand pipes that can be produced from the 
pipial stores of this smoking world. She has not only 
an attendant to present it whenever she may call for it, 
but his orders are to have it always in the most admi- 
rable smoking state — always lighted, without regard to 
the quantity of tobacco it may consume ; and, accord- 
ingly, her pipe is constantly kept smoking, day and 
night, without a moment's intermission ; and there are, 
besides the grand pipe-master, a number of attendants 
incessantly employed in seeking the most suitable to- 
bacco, and bringing it to the grand-master. There is no 
species of tobacco which the Queen has not in her store 
room. Shag, Pigtail, Cavendish, Manilla, Havana, 
Cigars, Cheroots, Negrohead, every possible species of 
nicotian she gives a trial to, by way of variety. A single 
cigar she holds in as much contempt as a lion would a 
fly by way of mouthful. We have seen her grand-master 
drop whole handfuls of Havanas at once into her pipe, 
and after them as many Cubas. 

" It may abate the wonder of the reader at this stu- 
pendous smoking power of the Queen, when we admit, 
as must indeed have become apparent in the course of 
our remarks, that the Queen performs her smoking as 
she does many of her other royal acts, by the hands of 
her servants. In truth, to speak candidly, the Queen 
never smokes at all, except through her servants. And 
this will appear very likely, when we describe the actual 
size of her royal pipe. It is, indeed, of most imperial 
dimensions. The head alone is so large, that while its 



128 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

heel rests on the floor of her cellar, its top reaches out 
of the roof. We speak a literal fact ; as any one who 
procures an order for the purpose may convince himself 
by actual inspection. We are sure that the quantity of 
tobacco which is required to supply it must amount to 
some tons in the year. Nay, so considerable is it, that 
ships are employed specially to bring over this tobacco, 
and these ships have a dock of one acre in extent at the 
port of London, entirely for their exclusive reception. 
In a word, the Queen's tobacco-pipe, its dimensions, its 
attendance, its supply, and consumption of tobacco, are 
without any parallel in any age or nation." 

Dr. Budgett adds : " The great Tobacco Warehouse is 
called the Queen's Warehouse, because it is rented by 
Government for £14,000 a year. This warehouse has 
no equal in any other part of the world. It is five acres 
in extent." 

137. The following extract is from an article which 
appeared in the 178th number of " CasselFs Illustrated 
Family Paper," page 163. The statistics may be relied 
on, seeing that they are derived from various authentic 
sources, such as the writings of Husson, De Wateville, 
Soy, and other contributions by able authors, which will 
be found in the "Annuaire de TEconomie Politique," as 
well as obtained from official documents. If the report 
respecting the Emperor be true, his example affords 
another of the many melancholy proofs, which history 
supplies, of the prostration of power and trust, to the 
fallacious machinations of expediency — expediency which 
upsets that righteous administration for upholding which 
Kings are ordained to rule, and Princes to decree justice. 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 129 

It confirms the unexceptional truth of the maxim, a that 
the love of money is the root of all evil." The advice 
of the sordid father to his son is not confined to private 
life, but extends to all ranks — the prince and the peasant 
alike — and is found in every age and country. "Make 
money, make money, my son, honestly if you can ; but 
above all, be sure to make money, be the consequences 
v:hat tliey may?' Where the greater power of doing 
mischief is vested, there is the greater need to demand 
responsible action. The prostitution of a nation's morals 
and health, for the sake of revenue, is an outrage to 
humanity — a curse to the progress of civilization. It 
is the destroying bane against which every philanthropic 
observer is called upon to impress " on the powers that 
be," that it is both their duty and interest to provide a 
compulsory antidote, as all other temporizing measures 
must fail. 

u In the year 1854, Paris chewed, snuffed, and smoked 
3,800,000 pounds of tobacco, for which it paid 17,725,263 
francs. This poor justice must be done to the Parisians 
and to the French in general, that few of them are 
guilty of the peculiarly disgusting American form of 
tobacco vice. The quantity of the weed masticated is 
to that snuffed and smoked, as one to sixty-two, and has 
not increased per annum since 1839. The habit of 
taking snuff is on the decrease ; that of smoking, on the 
contrary, has been of late years, and still is, in course 
of wonderful development. Formerly it was deemed an 
essentially vulgar practice, and was mainly confined to 
the estaminets ; from them it spread to students' rooms 
and artists' attics, then reached the clubs, at last invaded 

I 



130 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

families, and i the totality of the street/ and is now a la 
mode with all classes. As you are aware, the Emperor 
and Empress both smoke. If they had not a taste for 
tobacco, they might still indulge in, or rather subject 
themselves to its use, by way of setting an example, 
which his majesty has strong politico-economical reasons 
for wishing to see generally imitated. Between 1839 
and 1854, the consumption of tobacco in all France 
nearly doubled in quantity. Whatever may be the 
vicious effect of the noxious weed on the popular health, 
this increased consumption helps to plump up the gov- 
ernment finances curiously. The manufacture and sale 
of tobacco is, as my readers are aware, a State monopoly ) 
but they are, perhaps, not aware of what M. Husson 
assures us is the fact, that it produces a clear yearly 
profit (benefice net^) of more than 100,000,000 of 
francs, or one-fifteenth of all the receipts of the .public 
treasury." 

138. In the Lancet for 14th March, 1857, page 250, 
Mr. Higginbottom quotes Sir David Brewster's memoir 
of Sir Isaac Newton, wherein he states : 

u He was frugal in his diet, and in all his habits tem- 
perate. When he was asked to take snuff or tobacco, 
he declined, remarking 6 that he would make no necessi- 
ties to himself — a remark," says Mr. Higginbottom, 
" truly worthy of that great philosopher and Christian." 
My reasons for introducing the above are, that in many 
of the letters in the Lancet, on the tobacco controversy, 
the name of Sir Isaac Newton has been brought forward 
unwarrantably, by the advocates of the innocence of to- 
bacco, to prove that that great mind was uninjured by 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 131 

tobacco — a fact true only in this respect, that he never 
subjected himself to its influence. 

139. Two additional cases, with illustrations, showing 
the effects of tobacco smoking upon the palate, tonsils, 
and tongue. These cases have lately occurred in the 
course of my own private practice. 

T R , twenty-six years of age, a strong, 

brawny carter, who had smoked half-an-ounce or more 
of tobacco daily, for five years, complained of dyspep- 
sia, hypochondriasis, and impotency. The velum palati 
and tonsils exhibit the dark livid red and velvety ap- 
pearance so characteristically described by Mr. Solly in 
the Lancet of 14th February, 1857, an extract of which 
will be found at page 85. The tongue is loaded with a 
greenish- white fur. It is to this condition of the palate 
and tongue which Mr. Solly directs the attention of me- 
dical examiners of insurance offices. 

140. Case of colloid cancer on the tongue, drawn up 
by Mr. Turton. 

"W E , set. thirty-two, a printer by trade, 

residing in , says he did not begin to smoke or 

drink till he was twenty years old. Whenever he drank, 
he always smoked a very great deal ; in fact, he says, 
the pipe was seldom or never out of his mouth. About 
twelve months ago, he first noticed an ulcer on his 
tongue, near its centre; notwithstanding, he kept on 
smoking and drinking to a very great extent— the ulcer 
continuing rapidly to spread at that time. He was then 
seen by some medical gentlemen, who touched the ulcer 
with caustic. A band of matter resembling curd came 
out, and left a hole. The patient, though this ulcer 



132 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

greatly annoyed him, and was gradually extending, was 
not deterred from smoking and drinking, till two months 
ago, when he was obliged to desist, in consequence of 
the pain becoming excruciating when he put a pipe be- 
tween his lips. He then began to notice notches, as he 
says, on either side of his tongue. Such was his state 
when I saw him on Sunday week. His articulation, as 
you may imagine, was not very distinct. The mucous 
membrane of the cheeks and fauces are in accordance 
with the description of Mr. Solly, who says 'he can 
always detect a smoker by examining his fauces; for 
they assume a velvety-red appearance, and by the con- 
gested state of the mucous membrane/ The pain from 
the tongue causes him many a sleepless night, and his 
headaches are excruciating; the pain in his throat, he 
says, is greatest. While lying in bed, he sometimes 
feels as if he was suffocating." 

141. The following extracts from the article Tobacco, 
contained in the " Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales," 
pp. 190, 191-195, 196, are so confirmatory of the opi- 
nion which I had formed respecting the injurious effects 
of tobacco on the animal organs and functions, that I 
cannot refrain to append them. That voluminous and 
valuable work* was compiled by the most learned and 
experienced physicians and surgeons in France. 

" La preparation des tabacs exige un grand nombre 
d'ouvriers, et les emanations de cette plante sont si fortes 
et si malfaisantes qu'elles causent beaucoup d'incommo- 
dites a ceux qui s'occupent de ce travail ; ils sont en 

* Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales, par un Societe" de Mgdicins 
et de Chirurgiens. Paris, 1821. 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. .133 

general maigres, decolores, jaunes, asthmatiques, sujets 
aux coliques, au devoienient, au flux de sang, niais sur- 
tout au vertige, h la cephalalgie, au tremblement muscu- 
laire, a. un veritable narcotisme, et aux maladies plus ou 
moins aigues de la poitrine, comme j'ai eu ^occasion de 
l'observer, sois dans les hopitaux de Paris, ou ces ouv- 
riers se voient frequemment, soit dans les manufactures 
de tabac. Je possede dans mon recueil d' observations 
cliniques, pltisieurs faits curieux en ce genre que j'aurais 
consignes ici sans la crainte d'etre tros long. Ainsi, une 
substance aussi inutile cause des maux sans nombre, et 
la mort menie a ceux charges de preparer aux autres la 
plus insignificante des jouissances." 

"Les ouvriers, occupes ordinairement au tabac, dit 
Ramazzini, y gagnent des douleurs de tete violentes, des 
vertiges, des nausees, et des eternuemens continuels. II 
s^leve en effet dans cette operation une si grand-e quan- 
tite de parties subtiles, surtout en ete, que tous les voi- 
sins en sont incommodes, et se plaignent d'envies de 
vomir. Les cbevaux, occupes a tourner la meule (qui 
rape la tabac), temoignent Tacrete nuisible de cette 
poussiere qui voltige, en agitant frequemment la tete, en 
toussant et soufflant par les naseaux. Les ouvriers en 
tabac, ajoute-t-il plus loin, sont en general sans appetit. 
(Ramazzini Mai. des Artisans, traduction de Fourcroy, 
p. 189). Ce passage indique la necessite de transporter 
les ateliers ou Ton fabrique le tabac bors des villes a. 
cause des incommodites dont ils peuvent etre l'origine : 
c'est ce qui a lieu je crois, partout en France mainte- 
nant; nous devons pourtant aj outer que Ton finit sinon 
par s'babituer a ces emanations nuisibles, du moins par 



134 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

y etre moins inipressionables, car les ouvriers im peu 
anciens n'en sont presque plus tourmentes ? Fourcroy, 
dans une note de la traduction citee, indique les ouvriers 
de la ferme de Cette en Languedoc pour ne s'en trouver 
aucunement incommodes." 

"II en est de Tabus de tabac comme de celui de 
toutes les jouissances par irritation, comme de la mas- 
turbation, de Tabus des femrnes, des liqueurs fortes, etc. 
Et Ton doit encore etre etonne de ne pas lui voir causer 
des accidens plus norubreux." 

"Les parens ne sauraient done trop s'opposer a la 
funeste habitude d'user de tabac : souvent on la laisse 
prendre avec un facilite blamable, et Ton semble ne pas 
prevoir tous les niaux, tous les chagrins auxquels on 
livre la jeunesse a qui on laisse contracter cette coutume 
vicieuse : conseille souvent avec legerete pour un coryza 
ou des douleurs passageres de tete, on continue ensuite 
d'en prendre le restant de ses jours." 

" Les inconveniens et les dangers attaches a Tusage 
du tabac ont ete si evidens des Torigine de Tintroduc- 
tion de cette plante en Europe, que des souverains ont 
cherche a s'opposer a son emploi. Amurat, empereur 
des Turcs, le grand-due de Moscovie, le roi de Perse, en 
defendirent Tusage a leurs sujets sous peine de la vie ou 
d'avoir le nez coupe. Jaques Stuart, roi d'Angleterre, 
a fait un traite sur les inconveniens du tabac. Ilya 
un bulle d'Urbain VIII. par laquelle il excommunie 
ceux qui prennent du tabac dans les eglises ; enfin les 
savans diviserent beaucoup au sujet de ce vegetal et en 
blamerent Teroploi." 

142. I have received several communications from 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 135 

professional friends, strongly indicating the strength and 
extent of medical testimony against the use of the poi- 
sonous weed, and out of these I have selected one sent 
to me by a physician, who has long enjoyed extensive 
opportunities of witnessing the very prejudicial effects 
which tobacco smoking exercises on the digestive organs. 
u In the course of my professional experience/' he writes 
me, " two or three cases of decided carcinoma of the 
under-lip, all of which terminated fatally, have come 
under my care, and which could be unmistakeably traced 
to a sore, occasioned by a burn from a hot cutty-pipe. 
But I have had ample opportunities of observing the 
evil effects which tobacco-smoking produces on the 
health of the working-classes, and particularly how it 
operates by disordering the organs of digestion, in occa- 
sioning very bad forms of dyspepsia. Several inveterate 
smokers have been committed to my charge, on whom 
every species of persuasion, from remonstrance on the 
part of their relations, to admonition on that of their 
clergymen, had been used in vain, to induce them to 
relinquish the habit of smoking, to which they had been 
long unhappily addicted. They had the sallow, sickly 
look of individuals in bad health, were attenuated in 
body, and labored under anorexia, painful digestion, and 
an irritable state of the nervous system, harassing to 
their own feelings, and most distressing to those of their 
family. Although they had resisted every argument 
and advice tendered by unprofessional parties, I have 
never failed to succeed in making the most obstinate 
smoker a convert to my opinion, upon reasoning with 
him upon the subject, and showing the modus operandi 



136 tobacco: its use and abuse. 

of tobacco, in affecting his health and happiness, by its 
baneful influence on the process of digestion. And I 
can revert with much satisfaction to the grateful ex- 
pressions I have received from many such patients on 
restoration to health, after following my recommendation 
6 to give up the use of tobacco/ as you have expressed 
it, i for ever/ " 

143. The following observations of the learned author 
of the Zoonomia, accord with the medical opinions which 
I have adduced regarding the injurious effects of tobacco 
on the digestive organs : — 

Darwin, in his Zoonomia, vol. ii., page 701, thus ob- 
serves : " The unwise custom of chewing and smoking 
tobacco for many hours in a day, not only injures the 
salivary glands, producing dryness in the mouth when 
this drug is used, but I suspect that it also produces 
scirrhus in the pancreas. The use of tobacco in this 
immoderate degree injures the powers of digestion, by 
occasioning the patient to spit out that saliva which he 
ought to swallow; and hence produces that flatulency 
which the vulgar unfortunately take it to prevent." 

At page 80 of the same volume, he says : " I saw 
what I conjectured to be a tumor of the pancreas with 
indigestion, and which terminated in the death of the 
patient. He had been for many years a great consumer 
of tobacco, in so much, that he chewed that noxious drug 
all the morning, and smoked it all the afternoon." 

144. The following extract is from the Medical Times 
and Gazette of 11th December, 1858 : — 

"To the Editor of the Medical Times and Gazette — 
Sir, I enclose a copy of a circular, which I have found 



COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 137 

it necessary to issue, as a caution to the officers of this 
department. I have seen several, and heard of more 
such cases occurring among the general public, few of 
whom are aware of the i causa tanti mail! 

" ' Caution. — The Medical Officer cautions the men 
against the practice of smoking short pipes — more par- 
ticularly those, however, under the name of i Meer- 
schaum-washed pipes/ Several cases of diseases of the 
throat, gums, and stomach have recently occurred, trace- 
able to this cause. The Meerschaum-washed pipes are 
frequently, if not always, prepared with powerful mine- 
ral acids ; and the narcotic oils inhaled through them, 
exert a more than ordinarily pernicious influence on the 
health/ Waller Lewis, M. B. Cantab., 

" Medical Officer to Her Majesty's Post Office. 

"±th December, 1858." 

145. I have brought forward, I trust, evidence suffi- 
cient to convince the most skeptical, that tobacco is a 
most deleterious drug, whether used in the form of 
smoke, snuff, or quid — all of which modes of administra- 
tion, the public, and what is more surprising, the medical 
profession, seem hitherto to have regarded with most 
unaccountable nonchalance. 

The authorities which I have adduced, condemning 
tobacco smoking, must be allowed, by every unprejudiced 
mind, greatly to outweigh, in real value, all those brought 
forward in favor of it, not a few of the latter writings 
having been got up from more than questionable motives. 



Li 4,* 

138 tobacco: its use and abuse. 6£ 7$ 

Since the publication of my third edition, I have re- 
ceived accounts of not a few cases, and have had under 
my own treatment, several examples of ulceration of the 
lips, tongue, soft and hard palate, and of the mucous 
membrane of the cheek — some of these being purely 
carcinomatous and incurable : and all of which occurred 
in individuals greatly addicted to smoking tobacco. The 
number of patients frequenting my surgery in the morn- 
ings is upwards of 2000 annually, and these afford me 
an extensive field of surgical observation in every de- 
partment. It would appear that the cigar, or pipe, first 
produces a small blister of the mucous membrane of the 
mouth, which, being daily irritated by the pungent weed, 
progressively ulcerates and becomes cancerous. I am 
decidedly of opinion, that a cigar or pipe, impregnated 
with this cancerous fluid, is a ready medium to commu- 
nicate the disease to another person who uses the same 
cigar or pipe. 



THE END. 




